page_title: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
section_title: 1870–1907
hierarchical_section_title: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / History / 1870–1907
caption_attribution_description: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in Copley Square, 19th c.
context_page_description: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is the 17th largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. It is home to 8,161 paintings, surpassed among American museums only by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. With more than 1.2 million visitors a year, it is the 52nd most visited art museum in the world as of 2019.
  Founded in 1870 in Copley Square, the museum moved to its current Fenway location in 1909. The museum is affiliated with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts.
context_section_description: The Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1870 and was initially located on the top floor of the Boston Athenaeum and most of its initial collection came from the Athenæum's Art Gallery. Francis Davis Millet, a local artist, was instrumental in starting the Art School affiliated with the museum, and in appointing Emil Otto Grundmann as its first director. In 1876, the museum moved to a highly ornamented brick Gothic Revival building designed by John Hubbard Sturgis and Charles Brigham, noted for its massed architectural terracotta. It was located in Copley Square at Dartmouth and St. James Streets. It was built almost entirely of brick and terracotta, which was imported from England, with some stone about its base.
  After the MFA moved out in 1907, this original building was demolished, and the Copley Plaza Hotel (now the Fairmont Copley Plaza) replaced it in 1912.
caption: The original Museum of Fine Arts building in Copley Square.
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