The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the fourth-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. The New York State Legislature granted the Metropolitan Museum of Art an Act of Incorporation on April 13, 1870, "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said City a Museum and Library of Art, of encouraging and developing the Study of the Fine Arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and natural life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end of furnishing popular instruction and recreations". This legislation was supplemented later by the 1893 Act, Chapter 476, which required that its collections "shall be kept open and accessible to the public free of all charge throughout the year". The founders included businessmen and financiers, among them Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the US, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. Henry Gurdon Marquand donated an important part of his collection of Old Masters paintings to the fledgling institution. The museum first opened on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue.
Michael Faraday was an English physicist and chemist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday had only a basic school education and at the age of 14, became an apprentice to George Riebau, a bookbinder and bookseller. During his seven-year apprenticeship Faraday read many books, including Isaac Watts's The Improvement of the Mind and held discussions with his peers in the City Philosophical Society, where he attended lectures. He also developed an interest in science, especially in electricity. Faraday was particularly inspired by the book Conversations on Chemistry by Jane Marcet.
In 1812, at the age of 20 and at the end of his apprenticeship, Faraday attended lectures by the eminent English chemist Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution and the Royal Society, and John Tatum, founder of the City Philosophical Society. Faraday subsequently sent Davy a 300-page book based on notes he had taken during these lectures. In 1813, when Davy damaged his eyesight in an accident with nitrogen trichloride, he employed Faraday as an assistant. and as a Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution.
In June 1832, the University of Oxford granted Faraday an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree. During his lifetime, he was offered a knighthood in recognition for his services to science, which he turned down on religious grounds. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824, he twice refused to become President. He became the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1833. He continued his research but after retirement in 1858 Faraday lived at his house at Hampton Court and died there on 25 August 1867, aged 75.
Michael John Rowlandson was born in 1804, in Hungerford, Berkshire, his father being the Vicar of Warminster. He joined the Indian army as a cadet in 1820, becoming a lieutenant in 1821 and a major in 1824. He served at the College of Fort St. George as a Persian and Arabic translator and teacher and produced an Arabic textbook, "An analysis of Arabic quotations which occur in the Gulistan of Muslih-ud-Deen Sheikh Sadi, as collated with and according to the editions of Gentius and Gladwin, accompanied by a free translation: to which are added Persian illustrations of the same, and remarks on Arabic grammar, both in the English and Persian languages, the latter being extracts from the Muntiʼkhib alsurf of Moulevy Syed Ameer Hyder", for use at the College in 1828. He then went on to translate "Tohfut-ul-mujahideen", which was published by the Oriental Translation Society in 1833. He was also the author of some Christian tracts including "A Basket of Fragments and Crumbs for the Children of God" and "Specimens of Much Fine Gold". He died in Bournemouth in 1894.
Michel Beurdeley waa an expert in 18th century French and Far Eastern art. An who worked with the Courts of Appeal. He was an author and with Maurice Rheims, created the magazine "Connaissance des Arts".