Metmuseum

What the Metmuseum MCP server does

The Metmuseum MCP server connects MCP-compatible AI clients with The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s open-access collection. It provides three collection-focused tools: keyword search, object lookup, and department listing. The tools do not require an API key.

Search results can include an artwork’s title, artist, date, medium, and image. Searches may also be narrowed to objects with images, works currently on view, a specified medium, or a year range. Department identifiers from the department listing can be used to scope searches to areas such as European Paintings, Egyptian Art, or Arms and Armor.

An object lookup accepts a Met object ID and returns richer metadata. Available details include artist biography, medium, dimensions, department, classification, culture, period, credit line, image URLs, tags, and gallery number.

How it works

The Metmuseum MCP server is available in two deployment modes. A remote MCP endpoint is provided through Pipeworx at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/metmuseum/mcp. The endpoint lists the three Met-specific tools along with shared Pipeworx tools, so a client may show more tools than those documented here. The gateway also provides an ask_pipeworx route for asking questions in plain language and routing requests across Pipeworx sources.

The package can instead run as a local stdio process. In that mode, the client starts @pipeworx/mcp-metmuseum with npx, and the process handles MCP initialization, tool discovery, and tool calls through standard input and output. The local process exposes only the Met collection tools and does not include gateway meta-tools.

The same gateway also supports direct HTTP calls for tool execution, including a POST endpoint for metmuseum_search_artworks.

Setup and configuration

For a gateway connection, add the remote URL to the MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "metmuseum": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/metmuseum/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For local use, configure the client to run:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "metmuseum": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-metmuseum"]
    }
  }
}

The local mode does not need a Pipeworx account. No environment variables or API keys are documented as required.

Tools and capabilities

• search_artworks: Finds collection objects by keyword and supports image, on-view, medium, and year-range filters.
• get_artwork: Retrieves detailed metadata for one object using its objectID.
• list_departments: Returns department names and IDs for use in scoped searches.

Limitations and notes

The Metmuseum MCP server covers the documented Met collection tools; it is not described as a general museum-information or ticketing interface. Gateway connections include shared Pipeworx meta-tools, while local stdio connections do not. The gateway’s exact tool scope can change, so the connection’s initialize response is the authoritative source for the tools exposed at a given time.

The documented data comes from The Met’s open-access collection. Search results are compact, while full object metadata requires a separate lookup by object ID.