Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum occupies two connected historic buildings on North Charles Street in Baltimore's Mount Vernon Cultural District in Maryland, and holds an encyclopedic collection of over 36,000 works spanning more than five millennia — from predynastic Egyptian funerary objects to 20th-century paintings. Admission to the permanent collection is entirely free, establishing the Walters as one of the most generously accessible major art museums in the eastern United States. The collection's particular strengths are medieval illuminated manuscripts and ivory carvings, ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, Renaissance bronzes and panel paintings, and a world-class assembly of Byzantine jewelry and enamelwork. The original 1909 palazzo building on Centre Street connects via a covered bridge to a later exhibition wing, with galleries organized chronologically and by culture. The manuscript gallery houses books of hours created for European nobility in the 14th and 15th centuries, with individual pages magnified on adjacent screens for close reading. The armoury on the lower level holds European plate armor, jousting lances, and tournament equipment, consistently one of the most visited rooms in the museum. Medieval and Byzantine jewelry cases on the upper floors display gold filigree, gemstone settings, and champlevé enamel of extraordinary refinement — the collection ranks among the finest in North America. The Hackerman House annex at nearby One West Mount Vernon Place contains Asian art including Japanese lacquerware and Chinese export ceramics. Docent-led highlight tours departing twice weekly cover the greatest works in ninety minutes and are free with admission. The museum café operates Wednesday through Sunday. The surrounding Mount Vernon neighborhood includes the Washington Monument, the George Peabody Library, and the Peabody Conservatory within three minutes on foot.