Art Museum Collection Intelligence — Met & Art Institute API

Access world-class art collections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago — search 500,000+ artworks including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and artifacts.

Built for art apps, educational platforms, digital galleries, researchers, and AI art-recommendation engines.

What you get

• Rich artwork metadata — title, artist, date, medium, dimensions, department, culture, high-resolution image, museum, accession number
• Two museums — search the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago, or both
• Department + artist filters
• On-display + has-image filters
• Free, official museum APIs
• Pre-built dataset Overview in Apify Console for instant inspection

Why this actor (vs. alternatives)

	Build your own	Generic scraper	This actor
Maintenance	You wire up 2 APIs	Often broken	Maintained
Met + Art Institute	Manual, two integrations	One at best	Both unified
High-res images	Manual	Sometimes	Included
Department/artist filters	Manual	No	Native

Input

Field	Type	Description
museum	enum	artic (default), met, both
searchQuery	string	Search term (e.g., "impressionism", "Van Gogh")
department	enum	Department filter (e.g., European Paintings, Asian Art, Egyptian Art)
artistFilter	string	Filter by artist name
onDisplay	bool	Only works currently on display
hasImages	bool	Only works with images (default true)
maxResults	int	Maximum artworks to return (default 50)

Example Input

{
  "museum": "both",
  "searchQuery": "impressionism",
  "department": "European Paintings",
  "hasImages": true,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Output (sample)

{
  "object_id": "436532",
  "title": "Wheat Field with Cypresses",
  "artist": "Vincent van Gogh",
  "artist_nationality": "Dutch",
  "date": "1889",
  "medium": "Oil on canvas",
  "dimensions": "73 x 93.4 cm",
  "department": "European Paintings",
  "culture": "Dutch",
  "museum": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art",
  "image_url": "https://images.metmuseum.org/...",
  "is_on_display": true,
  "accession_number": "1993.132",
  "object_url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436532",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-28T14:00:00+00:00"
}

Use cases

• Art / gallery apps — populate digital galleries with curated collections
• Educational platforms — teach art history with real artworks + images
• Researchers — analyze collections by period, artist, medium, culture
• AI art engines — ground recommendations in real museum metadata
• Content creators — source high-res public-domain art for articles
• Digital signage / displays — rotate museum-quality artworks

Pricing

Pay-Per-Event:

• $0.005 per artwork
• $0.00005 actor-start fee

Example runs

Use case	Artworks	Cost
Single theme search	50	$0.25
Artist retrospective	200	$1.00
Full research dataset	1,000	$5.00

Tips

• Use museum: "both" to search the Met + Art Institute together
• Set hasImages: true (default) when you need displayable artwork
• Use department to focus on a collection area (e.g., Asian Art)
• Many artworks are public-domain — ideal for content + educational use
• Combine artistFilter + searchQuery for precise retrospectives

FAQ

Q: Which museums are covered?
A: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago — search either or both.

Q: Are the images high-resolution?
A: Yes — image_url returns the museum's high-res image when available.

Q: Is the data free / official?
A: Yes — both museums offer official open-access APIs.

Q: Can I find only on-display works?
A: Yes — set onDisplay: true.

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Legal & compliance

Uses the official open-access APIs of the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago. Many works are public domain; you remain responsible for verifying rights and attribution for each artwork before reuse.

Support & feature requests

Open an issue on the Actor page or contact via Apify Console messaging. Custom features welcome.