9 things you didn’t know about the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Art Museum. (B. Krist for Visit Philadelphia)
Photo by M. Fischetti for Visit Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the city’s most popular attractions. Even a race up its famous steps is iconic (thanks to the movie Rocky) and now, the museum is going through a massive expansion to bring even more art to Philadelphia.

But how much do you really know about the Philadelphia Museum of Art? We’ve gathered nine fun facts about everything from the museum’s history, its world-renowned collection and much more.

1. Every year, the museum welcomes 800,000 visitors and their website receives 10 million page views annually.

2. The museum is made up of the main building, the Rodin Museum, the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building and Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove Park Houses and covers 1 million + sq. ft. of property.

3. The museum’s collection includes work by Thomas Eakins and Charles Willson Peale.

4. The European Painting and Sculpture galleries include works by Monet, Renoir, Manet, Pissarro and Degas.

5. The Rodin Museum is the most important public collection of Rodin’s work outside of Paris.

6. Prints, drawings and photographs is the museum’s biggest curatorial collection, with more than 100,000 objects.

7. The South Asian Art gallery is the only place in the world outside of India where visitors can see an Indian temple.

8. The museum’s collection grows by 1% annually and 2,000 new works are added on average.

9. Over 46,000 households are museum members. 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located at 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

For more information, visit: philamuseum.org.