
Conserving Time-Honored Holiday Traditions
The wintertime ritual of decorating domestic and sacred spaces with symbolic evergreens extends across cultures and eras—from ancient Rome, where temples were adorned with life-affirming boughs during the winter solstice festival of Saturnalia; to medieval Europe, where the likes of holly and ivy were believed to afford blessings and provide protection, and served as hopeful symbols of the coming spring through Christmastide.


At The Met Store, we celebrate these holiday traditions with Museum-inspired ornaments that you and your loved ones can cherish for years to come. From hand-painted glass baubles to collectible keepsakes such as our annual star and snowflake ornaments, designed after different Museum treasures each year, our artful home ornaments make meaningful Met souvenirs and thoughtful gifts for the art lovers in your life.
Nurture your very own art-inspired holiday tradition with Christmas ornaments from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.


A Brief History of Keepsake Art Ornaments from The Met Store
The Met’s retail program has evolved with the Museum over the last century and a half—practically since its inception in 1870, The Met sold reproductions of works in its collection to raise funds. Museum-inspired offerings then expanded to include etchings of European paintings, photographic prints, and holiday ephemera, including Christmas cards and Advent calendars—an annual tradition that we continue to this day.


These Christmas-season offerings were so popular that, beginning in 1942, an annual holiday pop-up shop was opened in the Museum's Great Hall (shown above). Our dedicated holiday collection has since branched out to include a diverse selection of art ornaments.


Introducing the Annual Met Store Snowflake Ornament
In 1971, The Met Store introduced a sterling silver snowflake ornament designed by the artist Józef Domján (Hungarian, 1907–1992). Advertised as a festive addition to any Christmas tree, wreath, or bough of holly, or as an eye-catching decoration to "float in solitary splendor," this sterling silver ornament became the first of our annual Metropolitan Museum of Art ornaments.


Over 50 years later, this multigenerational tradition is still going strong.


A Rising Star
The year 1972 saw the debut of The Met Store’s first annual Star Ornament: a golden star to hang beautifully on its own or alongside our silvery snowflake.
In recent years, our star and snowflake ornaments have evoked complementary artworks in The Met collection: the 2023 Star and Snowflake referenced two kaleidoscopic drawings made around 1883 by the visionary designer Christopher Dresser (British, 1834–1904), while the 2024 Star and Snowflake take inspiration from the decorations on two striking shields in The Met’s Arms and Armor collection.


Ornaments for All Budgets
For a luxe addition to your Christmas ornament collection, The Met Store offers finely crafted sterling silver versions of our star and snowflake ornaments. The snowflake is made of lustrous sterling silver, and each star is crafted with 18K gold over a sterling silver base.
Our sterling silver stars and snowflakes are available for purchase individually, or save on our sterling silver ornament set.


Alternatively, enjoy the artistry of The Met Store’s annual star and snowflake ornaments with our more affordable versions in gold and silver overlay, also available individually and as a set.
The Met’s Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche Inspires Our Annual Angel Tree Ornament
In 1957, The Met unveiled a unique Christmas installation that would become an adored Museum tradition: a magnificent 18th-century Neapolitan crèche, or Nativity scene, populated with handcrafted architectural elements and figures—toiling townspeople, exotically dressed merchants, sheep, horses, and even an elephant—beneath a towering blue spruce adorned with exquisitely carved, painted, and silk-robed angels, also crafted in 18th-century Naples, Italy.


The fantastical assemblage was conceived of by Loretta Hines Howard, who began collecting these crèche figures in 1925. It was Howard’s idea to present an elaborate Nativity scene and Christmas tree at the Museum, and in 1964, she bequeathed more than 200 of her figures to The Met.


The spectacle is showcased in the Museum’s Medieval Sculpture Hall, set to the backdrop of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, and enhanced with Christmas music and special lighting ceremonies.


In 2001, to commemorate this cherished Museum tradition, The Met Store produced the first of our annual Angel Tree ornaments, which recall a different Neapolitan angel in The Met collection each year.


Ornaments Reimagining Fashionable Footwear
In 1997, The Met Store introduced a new holiday tradition: an annual line of ornaments inspired by stylish shoes in the collection of The Met’s Costume Institute.
“...Accessories have been part of The Costume Institute’s collection since it was established in 1937,” explained Jessica Regan, Associate Curator of The Met’s Costume Institute in an interview with The Met Store. “Although The Costume Institute didn’t become part of The Met until 1946, the Museum was actually collecting some fashion, including accessories, before that time. In those early years, there was an emphasis on collecting historical examples, primarily 18th- and 19th-century. By the 1950s and 1960s there was an increasing interest in collecting contemporary accessories, and we’ve continued to collect shoes, handbags, and other accessories across a broad range of periods. We now have over 3,000 shoes…in our collection.”
From pumps to platforms and beyond, our annual shoe ornaments add a dash of fashionable flair to our holiday assortment. Each shoe is available individually and as a set.


Art Ornaments for the Home
Like The Met Store’s collectible shoe ornaments, many Metropolitan Museum of Art ornaments are designed to dazzle throughout the seasons. We offer a number of unique and versatile art ornaments that can decorate your home or office space year-round.
“William©” Ornament
We’ve recently given one of our fan-favorite ornaments an artful upgrade. The new and improved hand-painted William Ornament pays homage to The Met's unofficial mascot, an ancient Egyptian hippopotamus statuette (ca. 1961–1878 BCE) who’s inhabited the Museum since 1917.


The blue-green figurine demonstrates the Egyptian artisan’s appreciation for the natural world: beneath its brilliant glaze, the body is painted with the outlines of river plants symbolizing the marshes in which the animal lived. Our ornament proudly adapts the detailing on the original figure.


Degas Little Dancer Ornament
This elegant miniature ornament celebrates The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (cast 1922, tutu 2018), one of Edgar Degas’s (French, 1834–1917) most iconic ballerinas.


When the original sculpture was first shown at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, the striking portrait of Marie van Goethen was dressed in a fabric tutu, ballet slippers, and a wig of human hair tied in a satin bow. The 1922 cast-bronze edition in The Met collection mimics the young dancer's jaunty pose.


The Favorite Cat Ornament
For the feline-infatuated, this adorable ornament honors the subject of Nathaniel Currier's (American, 1813–1888) hand-colored lithograph endearingly titled The Favorite Cat (1838–48). Currier achieved lasting fame as coprincipal of the celebrated New York printmaking firm Currier & Ives (American, 1857–1907), renowned for their wildly popular lithographic prints—many of which depict cats in various characteristic states of mischief and play.


Currier achieved lasting fame as coprincipal of the celebrated New York printmaking firm Currier & Ives (American, 1857–1907), renowned for their wildly popular lithographic prints—many of which depict cats in various characteristic states of mischief and play.


Unicorn Ornaments
The Unicorn Rests in a Garden (1495–1505) is an iconic French and South Netherlandish textile at The Met Cloisters. The medieval masterwork depicts a unicorn resting in a garden enclosure beneath a pomegranate tree, enveloped by a millefleurs backdrop of richly symbolic plants.


Our Unicorn Ornament and Unicorn in a Garden Hand-Painted Glass Ornament celebrate this whimsical creature.


Art Glass Ornaments Crafted with Care
The Met Store is committed to supporting artisans and artistry, as reflected in our lineup of hand-painted ornaments.
Hand-Painted Glass Ornaments
In honor of The Met’s stewardship of so many handcrafted treasures from around the world, our glass ornaments are hand-painted using a centuries-old technique originating in China toward the end of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Each artisan who produces our glass Christmas ornaments trains for at least a year, and spends between eight and 10 years honing the technique before they’re considered an accomplished painter. Only about six ornaments are produced each day by way of a careful four-step process, detailed in our dedicated blog post here.


Louis C. Tiffany Cloisonné Ornaments
Derived from the French term cloisons, meaning “partitions,” cloisonné is a decorative technique by which colored glass paste, or enamel, is painted between wire enclosures that have been bent or hammered into a desired motif. The surface is then rubbed to reveal the cloisons, which are typically enhanced with gilding.


Our annual cloisonné ornaments pay homage to the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848–1933), who ranks among the most celebrated artists in American history. Throughout a career that spanned the 1870s through the 1920s, he experimented with almost every decorative art medium, though he’s perhaps best known for his masterpieces in glass. From lamps to windows, many of the designer’s works employed the cloisonné concept to yield never-before-seen triumphs in glass. By way of a leaded-glass technique, small, jewel-toned glass pieces were separated by lead outlines revealing a larger picture or motif.


Specially made to honor the American Wing’s centennial in 2024, the Louis C. Tiffany Garden Landscape Cloisonné Ornaments (shown above), available individually and as a set, pluck their flowers from Garden Landscape (1912), a spectacular three-panel window designed by Agnes F. Northrop (American, 1857–1953) for Tiffany Studios (American, 1902–32). Northrop was one of the leading window designers in Louis C. Tiffany's employ, and together, they translated the natural world into luminous stained-glass masterpieces with remarkable finesse.
Garden Landscape was commissioned by the businesswoman and philanthropist Sarah Cochran to evoke the idyllic grounds of her grand estate, Linden Hall, in Pennsylvania. At nearly seven feet tall and over 10 feet wide, the Museum's newly acquired window is a monumental addition to the American Wing.
Baubles for Bird Lovers
The Met Store’s vast selection of blown-glass bird ornaments are the perfect additions to your holiday-bedecked nest.


Inspired by avian artworks in The Met collection—from charming prints in the Museum’s famed Jefferson R. Burdick Collection of American ephemera to the naturalistic illustrations of the artist and ornithologist John James Audubon (American, b. Haiti, 1785–1851)—our program of bird ornaments pays tribute to the careful study of and enduring fascination with these captivating creatures.
New Metropolitan Museum of Art Ornaments


Snow Globe Ornaments
Inspired by a classic souvenir, our new snow globe ornaments are the perfect tokens of your visit to The Met. Give these ornaments a light shake to enjoy two delightful wintertime scenes: an elegant angel from The Met’s Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche, and The Met Store's world-famous shopping bag full of goodies.


Spinning Ornaments
Introduced to the line in 2024, our new metal spinning ornaments with ribbons for hanging feature a festive, rotating decoration in the center. Each spinning ornament is perfectly presented in a giftable box.


Find ornaments, holiday cards, Advent calendars, and more in-store and online. Plus, shop presents for you and your loved ones with the help of our 2024 Gift Guide.