NEW YORK, Sept 15 — New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has beat out nearly 600 institutions to be named the world’s favourite museum.
In TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Museums list, the Met edged out the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago that came in second and third spots respectively, to take the top spot.
Winners are determined using an algorithm that takes into account the quantity and quality of reviews for museums around the world gathered over a 12-month period.
Predictably, most of the top-ranked museums are world renowned, with the US and France boasting two institutes each on the top 10 list.
Interestingly, however, while the Louvre boasts bragging rights to being the most visited museum in the world, having received 9.3 million visitors in 2014, TripAdvisor travellers seem to have enjoyed the Musee d’Orsay more: Orsay placed second on the worldwide ranking, while the Louvre was ranked fifth.
The Met, meanwhile, was universally lauded on the TripAdvisor forum for its size and the diversity of exhibits.
An iconic Manhattan institution, the Met is the largest art museum in the US, boasting two million artworks in its permanent collection.
Last year was likewise a banner year for the Met, as it drew 6.3 million visitors — the highest number of attendees since the museum began tracking admission statistics more than 40 years ago.
This season, one of the most anticipated exhibits includes “Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom,” a collection of 230 objects and masterworks curated from a golden age of “great cultural flowering” that lasted nearly 400 years.
Popular exhibits currently on display include a collection of portraits painted by John Singer Sargent and a collection of Fabergé eggs and artefacts.
Here are the top 10 museums in the world, according to TripAdvisor users:
1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York City, New York, USA
2. Musee d'Orsay – Paris, France
3. Art Institute of Chicago – Chicago, Illinois, USA
4. Museo Nacional del Prado – Madrid, Spain
5. Musee du Louvre – Paris, France
6. State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace – St. Petersburg, Russia
7. National Gallery – London, England
8. The Rijksmuseum (National Museum) – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
9. Vasa Museum – Stockholm, Sweden
10. National Museum of Anthropology (Museo Nacional de Antropologia) – Mexico City, Mexico
— AFP Relaxnews
