Recommended Museums
for students in the Northeast US writing papers about ancient art history and archaeology
…and anyone else interested in the subject
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
One of the world’s best Egyptian collections, arguably the second best Old Kingdom collection, after Cairo; notable Classical and Medieval Art collections as well.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
A world class museum for most time periods and geographical regions, certainly for any kind of art covered in my classes.
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
A a smaller museum, but a very respectable collection, including a good deal of Roman sculpture (most notably two large sarcophagi and a new installation of sculpture in the round), Greek and Etruscan vases and metalwork, Egyptian artifacts (including a mummy), Romanesque and Gothic sculpture.
Harvard Semitic Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
With a superb collection of archaeological materials from the ancient Near East.
The Sackler Museum of Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Sizable collection of Greek and Roman material.
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
America’s oldest university museum. Important not only for its collection of Jewish, Early Christian, and pagan places of worship at the ancient site of Dura-Europos, but also for notable collections of Mesopotamian relief sculpture, Greek vases, and ancient glasswork.
The Slater Memorial Museum at the Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, CT
While you won’t see much in the way of ancient originals here, this museum has a collection of plaster casts that I have chosen to accept for the descriptive essay assignment. Collecting casts like these for educational and aesthetic purposes was highly fashionable during the 19th century. When collections of copies fell out of favor, many universities and museums disbanded their collection. The Slater’s collection of casts is one of the largest and best in the United States . It offers the advantage of being able to view copies of pieces, in most cases life-size, that one would have to travel hundreds of miles within Europe , the Middle East , and North Africa to see.