The Met highly values our long-standing relationships with scholarly institutions, governments, cultural organizations, and colleagues around the world, and we are committed to ongoing dialogue and partnerships that support and enhance engagement with art and creativity. Annually, we interact with dozens of nations and international museums on any number of topics, issues, and opportunities. The Met has formally committed to long-term cooperative relationships with a number of countries, which have resulted in productive and meaningful Memorandums of Understanding MOU.
The partnership followed the ratification by the Greek Parliament of a historic and innovative agreement between the parties that will bring important Cycladic artifacts from the Leonard N. Stern Collection to The Met for a year display starting in January This display will be followed by another year period during which loans will travel from the Greece to The Met before the Stern collection resides permanently in Greece.
Through the arrangement, the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Museum of Cycladic Art, and The Met will exchange expertise in the study and conservation of Cycladic works and share findings with the scholarly community through both an international symposium and an online database, among other initiatives.
In , The Met and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments signed a Memorandum of Understanding formalizing their shared commitment to future exchanges of expertise and art. The agreement was signed at a ceremony held to mark the transfer of three works of art to the Nigerian National Collections: two sixteenth-century brass plaques created at the Court of Benin, and a brass head produced in Ife around the fourteenth-century.
The Met initiated the transfers of these works following collaborative research, conducted in partnership with the NCMM and other colleagues, that led to the joint determination that the works should be transferred to Nigeria. Rockefeller Wing in The multi-phased initiative includes the exploration of how the collaboration and training with The Met will best suit the future needs of the NCMM; convenings and workshops between the institutions; and the creation of a pilot project in the Nigerian museums around documentation and education.
