“5000 years of art” is how The Metropolitan Museum - usually just called The Met - describes its collection. It is nearly a quarter mile long, and in its more than 2 million square feet of display space, it sure lives up to expectations.

Egyptian stone age artifacts -some over 100,000 years old

Our first stop at The Met was in the Egyptian section. This one section is extremely massive, covering everything from early Egyptian artifacts - some over 100,000 years old - up to “recent” Egyptian art made during the times of Roman occupation.

Fully transfered Egyptian temple

There is even an Egyptian temple that was moved stone by stone from its home in Egypt, thus saving it from being flooded by the building of damns on the Nile.

3000-5000-year-old papyrus on display

By the time we made it through just half of the Egyptian section, we realized we would have to hurry up if we wanted to see anything else in the museum before it closed. It seems that the curators of the Egyptian section felt somewhat similar about cataloging the innumerable items on display, and there is a section with thousands of artifacts grouped by artifact type or where they were found. This section looks more like an archeologist’s cataloging room than a neat museum display, and that gives a feel as to the immensity of items held at the museum.

Greek/Roman statues on display

The Greek and Roman section of the Met seemed as equally massive as the Egyptian section. But due to time constraints we had to zip through it pretty quickly. Some notable exhibits include 2500-year-old Greek armor (it’s amazing it has survived in such good condition), a huge display of Greek and Roman statues, pottery, and more.

European room transferred to the Met

Just like the Met was capable of transplanting an entire Egyptian temple from its original home to the museum, it has also done the same with important and intricately painted/carved bedrooms from 1600-1800’s homes in Europe. These rooms look so at home at the Met, thus giving us the feeling we were visiting an old European palace.

The Toilet Of Venus , by François Boucher, 1751

There is far more in this museum than I could write about in one blog post. But there is one more interesting section we saw: Exhibits of art. Visiting this section was a pleasure especially after having bought a piece of renaissance art at Christie’s in New York. Many of the renaissance artists whose pieces were being sold at Christies, also have pieces displayed here at the Met.

Luckily, we managed to get to Christie’s before the auction began. And it’s a good thing we did, because the drawing we wanted opened with a bid higher than what we had put in since there were many absentee bids, so in the end we decided to skip out and go for another drawing with better provenance. It has been displayed in museums around the world and we think it looks nicer than the one we had in mind initially.

Now we are the proud owners of a 16th century work of art that we got while traveling and working around the world. How unreal is that We surely didn’t expect to buy a piece of Renaissance art when starting our trip, and even on day before yesterday when we first stumbled across Christie’s - by accident; we didn’t expect to get anything while there.

And in case any of you are wondering, we’re not lugging it along with us, we’re shipping it back home where it will be stored safely till we return. Who knows, we might even lend it to a museum if there are any that are interested in Renaissance art.We don’t mind making Christie’s our second home in New York Plus we love how friendly and sprightly the doorman is!

Part of the 15th century drawing we bought

If you want to see more of Fifth Avenue where we went after Christie’s, just watch the video above.