Harvard Art Museums MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to the Harvard Art Museums API, giving access to over 224,000+ artworks, artist records, and museum objects.

Features

This MCP server provides 5 tools for interacting with Harvard's art collection:

search_objects - Search artworks in the collection with filters
get_object - Fetch detailed information about a specific artwork by ID
search_people - Search for artists and people in the collection
get_person - Fetch detailed information about a specific person by ID
random_object - Get a random artwork with optional classification/culture filters

Installation

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/AlexLin1234/harvard-art-museums-mcp-server
cd harvard-art-museums

Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install mcp requests python-dotenv pydantic

Get your free API key from https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/api

Create a .env file in the project root:

HARVARD_ART_MUSEUMS_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add this configuration to your Claude Desktop config file:

MacOS/Linux: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "harvard-art-museums": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/harvard-art-museums/server.py"],
      "env": {
        "HARVARD_ART_MUSEUMS_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: Make sure to use the absolute path to server.py and include your virtual environment's Python if needed:

Windows: "C:\\Users\\YourName\\path\\to\\harvard-art-museums\\.venv\\Scripts\\python.exe"
MacOS/Linux: "/Users/YourName/path/to/harvard-art-museums/.venv/bin/python"

Other MCP Clients

For other MCP-compatible clients, configure the server with:

Command: Path to Python executable (preferably from the virtual environment)
Arguments: Path to server.py
Environment: Set HARVARD_ART_MUSEUMS_API_KEY to your API key

Usage Examples

Once connected to Claude Desktop, you can ask questions like:

"Search for impressionist paintings by Monet"
"Find me a random Japanese artwork"
"Tell me about Pablo Picasso"
"Show me details about object ID 299843"

API Rate Limits

The Harvard Art Museums API has the following limits:

2,500 requests per day per API key
Please use responsibly and cache results when possible

Development

The server uses:

MCP SDK for Model Context Protocol implementation
Requests for HTTP API calls
Pydantic for data validation
python-dotenv for environment variable management

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

Harvard Art Museums