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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:

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

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.