Metropolitan Museum of Art Scraper

Scrape The Metropolitan Museum of Art's open collection — one of the world's largest art museums with over 470,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of history. Extract detailed metadata for paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, decorative arts, and more from departments across European Paintings, Asian Art, Egyptian Art, Greek and Roman Art, and 15 other departments.

What you get

Every record includes:

Field	Description
objectId	Unique Met artwork identifier
title	Artwork title
artistDisplayName	Artist's display name
artistDisplayBio	Artist biographical note (nationality, dates)
artistNationality	Artist's nationality
artistBeginDate / artistEndDate	Artist birth/death years
artistGender	Artist gender (when recorded)
department	Museum department name
objectName	Object type (e.g., Painting, Vase, Sword)
classification	Object classification
objectDate	Human-readable creation date
objectBeginDate / objectEndDate	Numeric date range for filtering
medium	Materials used (e.g., "Oil on canvas")
dimensions	Physical dimensions
culture	Culture of origin
period	Historical period
dynasty / reign	Dynasty and reign (for applicable works)
creditLine	Acquisition credit information
accessionNumber	Museum accession number
country / city / region	Geographic origin
isPublicDomain	Whether the work is CC0 licensed
isHighlight	Whether the Met features it as a highlight
primaryImage	Full-resolution image URL
primaryImageSmall	Web-optimized image URL
additionalImages	Up to 10 additional view URLs
tags	Descriptive tags for the artwork
objectURL	Link to the Met's collection page
objectWikidataUrl	Wikidata entity link
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 timestamp of extraction

Input options

Mode: Search artworks

Search across the full collection by keyword.

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "impressionism",
  "hasImages": true,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Mode: Browse by department

Get artworks from a specific museum department.

{
  "mode": "byDepartment",
  "department": "11",
  "hasImages": true,
  "maxItems": 100
}

Available departments:

• 1 — American Decorative Arts
• 3 — Ancient West Asian Art
• 4 — Arms and Armor
• 5 — Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
• 6 — Asian Art
• 7 — The Cloisters
• 8 — The Costume Institute
• 9 — Drawings and Prints
• 10 — Egyptian Art
• 11 — European Paintings
• 12 — European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
• 13 — Greek and Roman Art
• 14 — Islamic Art
• 15 — The Robert Lehman Collection
• 16 — The Libraries
• 17 — Medieval Art
• 18 — Musical Instruments
• 19 — Photographs
• 21 — Modern Art

Mode: Search by artist

Find all artworks attributed to a specific artist.

{
  "mode": "byArtist",
  "query": "Monet",
  "hasImages": true,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Filters

Parameter	Type	Description
hasImages	boolean	Only return artworks with images (default: true)
isOnView	boolean	Only return artworks currently on display
isPublicDomain	boolean	Only return CC0 licensed artworks
dateBegin	integer	Earliest creation date (year, can be negative for BCE)
dateEnd	integer	Latest creation date (year)
maxItems	integer	Maximum records to return (1–5000, default: 50)

Example use cases

• Art research: Find all Impressionist paintings from 1870–1900 with public domain images
• Museum data: Browse Egyptian Art department for catalog integration
• Artist portfolio: Scrape all artworks by a specific artist in the Met collection
• Educational content: Collect CC0 artwork images for teaching or publishing
• Art market analysis: Track classifications and periods across departments
• Academic study: Analyze metadata distribution across 5,000 years of art history

Sample output record

{
  "objectId": 437988,
  "title": "Princess Pauline Metternich on the Beach",
  "artistDisplayName": "Eugene Boudin",
  "artistDisplayBio": "French, Honfleur 1824–1898 Deauville",
  "artistNationality": "French",
  "department": "European Paintings",
  "objectName": "Painting",
  "classification": "Paintings",
  "objectDate": "1865",
  "objectBeginDate": 1865,
  "objectEndDate": 1865,
  "medium": "Oil on panel",
  "dimensions": "10 x 7 7/8 in. (25.4 x 20 cm)",
  "creditLine": "Robert Lehman Collection, 1975",
  "accessionNumber": "1975.1.182",
  "isPublicDomain": true,
  "primaryImage": "https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ep/original/DT4425.jpg",
  "primaryImageSmall": "https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ep/web-large/DT4425.jpg",
  "tags": ["Princesses", "Women", "Beaches"],
  "objectURL": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437988",
  "recordType": "artwork",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Data source

All data is sourced from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's free and open Collection API (collectionapi.metmuseum.org). The API provides no-authentication access to the museum's entire digitized collection. No API key or account is required. Images marked isPublicDomain: true are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.

FAQ

Q: Do I need an API key or account? A: No. The Met Collection API is completely free and open — no registration required.

Q: How many artworks does The Met have? A: Over 470,000 objects are in the collection, with approximately 375,000 available via the API.

Q: Can I use the images commercially? A: Artworks with isPublicDomain: true are released CC0 (no rights reserved) and can be used for any purpose. Always check the rightsAndReproduction field for specific terms.

Q: Why are some artworks missing images? A: Many works in the physical collection have not yet been photographed or do not permit digital reproduction. Use hasImages: true to filter to only illustrated works.

Q: What is the date range of the collection? A: The collection spans from approximately 5000 BCE (ancient Egyptian) to contemporary works. Use dateBegin/dateEnd with negative values for BCE dates.

Q: How often is the data updated? A: The Met updates their collection API regularly. The scrapedAt field records when each record was extracted.

Q: Can I scrape all 375,000 artworks? A: Yes, set maxItems to 5000 and run multiple times with different department or search filters. No rate limits are documented for the public API.