The Met attracts record number of visitors

New York

BUOYED by strong international tourism, a spate of well-attended shows and a seven-day-a-week schedule, the Metropolitan Museum of Art drew 6.3 million visitors in the past year, the most since it began tracking these statistics more than 40 years ago.

The Met, which announced the figures late on Monday, said it was the fourth year in a row the museum had drawn more than 6 million visitors, keeping it in a rarefied group that includes the National Gallery and the British Museum in London, which both attracted slightly larger numbers, and the Louvre, the world's biggest draw with more than 9 million in each of the past three years. The Met's total, which includes visitors to both the main building on Fifth Avenue and the Cloisters in Washington Heights, was pushed up in part by the highly popular China: Through the Looking Glass, an exploration of China's influence on Western fashion; it has drawn more than 350,000 visitors, many of whom are reflected in attendance numbers for the fiscal year that ended June 30.