Browse 400,000 Museum Artworks Online — For Free
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made its entire public domain collection freely available online. Over 400,000 works — paintings, sculpture, artifacts, prints, armor, manuscripts — all downloadable, shareable, usable without restriction. Museum Drift is a viewer built specifically to let you browse it without the friction of The Met's own database.
No account. No download. Works in any browser on any device.
Browse The Collection — FreeWhat The Met's Open Access collection actually is
In 2017, The Metropolitan Museum of Art released over 375,000 images of public domain works under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license — meaning they belong to everyone. No copyright. No restrictions. You can use them, print them, post them, or simply look at them.
The collection has since grown to over 400,000 works. It spans 5,000 years of human art-making across dozens of civilizations — from a 3,000-year-old Egyptian stone carving to a Rembrandt painted in 1642 to a woodblock print by Hokusai. All of it free, all of it public domain.
The problem with The Met's own website
The Met's collection database is genuinely excellent if you know what you're looking for — artist name, object number, specific period. It's not great for just browsing. The search interface is built for research, not exploration. If you don't have a destination in mind, it's hard to wander.
Museum Drift is built for wandering. It loads artwork continuously, one after another, filtered by whatever department you choose. You can stop on something interesting, read the details, click through to the full Met entry — or just let it keep going. It's less like a library catalog and more like walking through a gallery.
What you can browse
Rembrandt, Vermeer, El Greco
Pharaonic sculpture, papyri, coffins
Marble sculpture, painted vases
Japanese prints, Chinese porcelain
Illuminated manuscripts, tapestries
Tournament armor, Japanese katana
Also: Drawings & Prints, American Art, and a random mix across everything. See all departments →
Is it actually free?
Yes. The artwork is free because The Met made it free. Museum Drift itself costs nothing and requires no account. The app is a viewer — it loads images directly from The Met's servers and displays them with the metadata The Met provides.
The CC0 license means there are no restrictions at all on how you use the images. You can screenshot them, set them as wallpaper, print them, use them in a project — whatever you want. They're public domain.
What the artwork shows you
Each piece displays the full image, then below it: title, artist name, date, medium, culture or period, and the credit line from The Met. There's also a direct link to the artwork's page on The Met's website if you want to read more about it.
Nothing is made up or summarized by an AI. The metadata comes directly from The Met's own records. If The Met says a painting is attributed to a follower of Rembrandt, that's what you'll see.
Common questions
Is this the official Met Museum website?
No. Museum Drift is an independent project, not affiliated with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The artwork and metadata come from The Met's Open Access collection, which The Met has made publicly available under CC0 license.
How many artworks are available?
Over 400,000 public domain works. The Met's Open Access release is one of the largest of its kind from any museum in the world.
Can I download the images?
The images are served from The Met's own servers and are CC0 — fully public domain. You can right-click and save any image, or find the full-resolution version on The Met's website via the link each artwork provides.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. Museum Drift works in any modern browser on any device — desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone.