Philadelphia Museums

Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker.

It was founded as the capital of the Pennsylvania Colony, which played an instrumental role in the American Revolution.

It was a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787.

Philadelphia has many excellent museums and the museums that will be featured by the “Joy of Museums.”

Virtual Tour of the Museums in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Penn Museum
The Barnes Foundation
Museum of the American Revolution
Rodin Museum
National Constitution Center

Highlights Tour of the Museums in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is an art museum that was initially chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

The main museum building was completed in 1928 on a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The museum’s collection contains over 240,000 objects with significant holdings of European, American, and Asian Art.

The artwork in the collection includes sculpture, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, armor, and decorative arts.

Penn Museum

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, commonly called Penn Museum, is an archaeology and anthropology museum.

Penn Museum’s collections fall into two main categories: archaeology, the artifacts recovered from the past by excavation, and ethnology, the objects and ideas collected from our Cultural Heritage.

More than 20 galleries feature objects from around the world and throughout the ages.

The Barnes Foundation

The Barnes Foundation has locations in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia and Logan Square, Philadelphia.

It was founded in 1922, and the foundation’s collection consists of over 4,000 objects, including over 900 paintings, estimated to be worth about $25 billion.

The Barnes Foundation exhibits some of the most famous works by Impressionist and Modernist masters plus European and American masterpieces, as well as ancient works from many cultures.

Museum of the American Revolution

The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia is a museum dedicated to the story of the American Revolution.

The museum has a collection of several thousand objects, including artwork and sculpture, textiles and weapons, manuscripts, and rare books relevant to the American Revolution.

The museum also includes specialized exhibition galleries, theaters, and large-scale models of figures representing the story of the American Revolution.

The museum is located in the historic heart of Philadelphia, the city that served a central role in America’s founding.

The museum is surrounded by American historical sites such as the First Bank of the United States, Independence Hall, the National Constitution Center, American Philosophical Society, Carpenters’ Hall, and the Liberty Bell.

Rodin Museum

The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia has the most extensive collection of sculptor Auguste Rodin’s works outside Paris.

It first opened in 1929 and recently underwent a three-year renovation that brought the museum back to its original vision of displaying Rodin’s works.

The best-known of Rodin’s works, The Thinker greets visitors outside the museum in the entry courtyard.

The museum’s collection has many more of the artist’s works, including The Kiss (1886), Eternal Springtime (1884), The Age of Bronze (1875–76), and The Burghers of Calais, a monument commissioned by the City of Calais in 1884.

National Constitution Center

The National Constitution Center is an interactive museum and a national town hall for constitutional dialogue, hosting government leaders, journalists, scholars, and celebrities for public discussions.

The nonpartisan institution is located on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and offers resources onsite and online.

The center opened in 2003, joining other closeby historic sites and attractions such as Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

The center was created by the Constitution Heritage Act in 1988, the act defined: “The Center shall disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a non-partisan basis in order to increase the awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.”

City: Philadelphia
Country: United States
State: Pennsylvania
Founded: 1682
Incorporated 1701
Population: 6 million