Art from the World Over

The Library's Museum passes, opens a new window have long been popular offerings at the Library, but during the time of quarantine the museums are closed and potential visitors must stay home. However, some museums have made virtual tours or online representation of their entire holdings available for anyone to see from the comfort of their home. What follows is but a small selection of museums that have made their collections available virtually. Enjoy these offerings from near and far!

Local Museums

Museum of Fine Arts, opens a new window

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, opens a new window

Museum of African American History, opens a new window

Boston Children's Museum, opens a new window

Peabody Essex Museum, opens a new window

DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, opens a new window

Shelter In Place Gallery, opens a new window, a tiny pop-up gallery started by the Boston artist Eben Haines, opens a new window where the scale is 1 inch equals 1 foot.

United States

Walters Art Museum, opens a new window, Maryland

Barnes Foundation, opens a new window, Pennsylvania

Solomon R. Guggenheim, opens a new window, New York

The Broad, opens a new window, California

National Gallery of Art, opens a new window, Washington, D.C.

Art Institute of Chicago, opens a new window, Illinois

City Museum, opens a new window, Missouri

International

Museu de Arte de São Paulo, opens a new window, Brazil. 

Neues Museum, opens a new window, Germany

Palace Museum, opens a new window, China

Vatican Museums, opens a new window, Italy

Zacheta National Gallery of Art, opens a new window, Poland

Muséosphère, opens a new window, France

Tallinn Art Hall, opens a new window, Estonia

National Galleries of Scotland, opens a new window, Scotland

Rijksmuseum, opens a new window, Netherlands

Museo Frida Kahlo, opens a new window, Mexico

The British Museum, opens a new window, England

And just for fun, a musical virtual gallery tour! Russian composer Moden Mussorgsky wrote his "Pictures at an Exhibition" as a virtual tour of works of his friend Viktor Hartmann. There had been a major exhibition of his paintings at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg soon after he died in 1839. A "promenade" theme precedes each movement as the viewer moves from one artwork to the next. The paintings depicted in this gallery weren't ones that were displayed in the Saint Petersburg exhibition, but that show influenced Mussorgsky's composition based on drawings and watercolors that the composer knew personally.