Visit Museums from Home: 19 Virtual Tours of Famous Collections

We travel and culture buffs aren’t good in a quarantine. We itch to get out to experience exceptional objects and breathtaking spaces in person. Luckily, many museums have teamed with Google Arts & Culture to create virtual tours of their collections. The Decorative Arts Trust hopes these online tours assuage your cabin fever and melt away the stresses of the world for a few moments. If you are new to Google’s 360˚ Street View panoramic tours, simply open the link and use your cursor or the arrow to move through rooms. Look for an “x” and click on it to move to that spot. There is even a Google Arts & Culture app.

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Berlin: Altes Museum, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin

Berlin: Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago

Florence: Uffizi Gallery

Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bayou Bend First Floor, Bayou Bend Second Floor, Rienzi First Floor

Kansas City: The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art

Kraków: The National Museum, The Matejko House, The Józef Mehoffer House

London: Tate Britain

Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum

Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Antropología, México (National Museum of Anthropology)

Mumbai: Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum

New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paris: The Louvre (Adobe flash player required)

Paris: Musée d’Orsay

St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum

Vienna: Albertina

There are many more museum virtual tours on Google Arts & Culture as well as on individual organizations’ websites. Google also offers a number of virtual tours of heritage site and landmarks. For a different kind of virtual tour, check out this British Museum collection timeline tour. We hope these digital experiences provide you with some enjoyment, relaxation, and edification!

We need your support! The Decorative Arts Trust is a non-profit, membership organization that promotes and fosters the appreciation and study of the decorative arts. We achieve our mission through exchanging information through domestic and international programming, collaborating and partnering with museums and preservation organizations, and underwriting internships, research grants, and scholarships for graduate students and young professionals as part of our Emerging Scholars Program. For more information about the Trust and recent research in the decorative arts field, see our website, Facebook page, Instagram page, and YouTube channel.