A side-by-side look at the Art Institute Chicago MCP Server and Met Museum MCP Server MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Art Institute Chicago MCP Server for art & culture work as a local process; choose Met Museum MCP Server for art & culture as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
artic_search_artworks, artic_get_artworks, artic_search_artists.met_list_departments, met_search_collections, met_list_objects.Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Art & Culture | Art & Culture |
| Quality signal | 56/100 · Good | 56/100 · Good |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Local subprocess (stdio) | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | Not declared | Not declared |
| Pricing | Not declared | Not declared |
| Required env vars | None listed | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 1 | 4 |
| Directory activity | 1 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 2 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | 6 | 4 |
| Full listing | View Art Institute Chicago MCP Server | View Met Museum MCP Server |
artic_search_artworksSearch artworks by text and filters, with facet counts and date sortingartic_get_artworksFetch full records for up to 10 artworks: description, provenance, histories, image URLs with rights status, related mediaartic_search_artistsFind artists, cultures, and organizations by name or id, with available Getty ULAN identifiers, life dates, artwork counts, and sample worksartic_search_exhibitionsSearch past, current, and upcoming exhibitions by text, date, artwork id, or artist idartic_search_audio_guideSearch audio-guide stops by text: title, MP3 URL, and transcriptartic_lookup_vocabularyList the values a search filter accepts, with artwork countsmet_list_departmentsReturn all 19 curatorial departments with their numeric IDs and display namesmet_search_collectionsSearch the collection by keyword, optionally matched in titles or tags only, with filters for department, date range, medium, geography, image availability, on-view status, and highlight designationmet_list_objectsList every object ID in a department, every object created or revised since a date, or both, without a keywordmet_get_objectFetch full records for one or more object IDs — metadata, provenance, artist info, CC0 image URLs, tags, and Wikidata links — optionally with up to 3 CC0 images as image contentPaste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
{
"mcpServers": {
"art-institute-chicago-mcp-server": {
"command": "bunx",
"args": [
"@cyanheads/art-institute-chicago-mcp-server@latest"
]
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"met-museum-mcp-server": {
"command": "bunx",
"args": [
"@cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server@latest"
]
}
}
}