The Walters Art Museum

Walters Art Museum is one of America's most unique museums, located in Baltimore's Mount Vernon district, bringing together seven thousand years of art from world cultures with the public. Free to all, the museum houses a stunning collection of 36,000 objects in five historic buildings, ranging from French paintings to Ethiopian icons, from richly decorated Quran and Bible manuscripts to ancient Roman sarcophagi. Founded in 1934 when Henry Walters donated the collection he started with his father, William T. Walters, to the city, the museum today actively confronts historical aspects such as its founders' support for the Confederacy (the side that defended slavery in the American Civil War) and their Eurocentric understanding of collecting. Aiming to be an anti-racist and inclusive institution, Walters also plays a leading role in digitizing its collection and sharing high-resolution images freely into the public domain, and recognizes the Piscataway and Susquehannock Nations, the original indigenous inhabitants of the museum's land.