The Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art have since reaffirmed the statement of purpose and supplemented it with the following statement of mission: This statement of purpose has guided the Museum for more than a century. The Museum was founded on April 13, 1870, 'to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction.'
Its collections include nearly two million works of art spanning more than 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums.
