Israel Museum listed as world’s 17th largest art institution

The Israel Museum, with its massive collections of archaeology, Jewish ritual objects, fine arts, and contemporary works, was listed as the world’s 17th largest museum.

The list, compiled by Newsweek and published Friday, placed the Jerusalem institute ahead of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and said it was just slightly smaller than the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Founded in 1965, The Israel Museum has a gallery area of 199,000 square feet (18,500 square meters), according to the list.

It contains some 500,000 pieces of art, ranging from prehistoric to contemporary art, as well as extensive Biblical and Holy Land archaeology.

And even amid the many coronavirus lockdowns, The Israel Museum was still purchasing new works, mostly for its contemporary art collection.

Coming in first place was the Louvre Museum in Pairs, coving an enormous area of 782,910 square feet (72,735 square meters).

But the famous institute was only reported to have some 38,000 art pieces in comparison, dating from prehistory to the 21st century.

Jessica Steinberg contributed to this report.