Harvard Art Museums MCP Server

🚀 Harvard Art Museums MCP Server

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

✨ Features

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

• search_objects - Search artworks in the collection using filters
• get_object - Retrieve detailed information about a specific artwork by its ID
• search_people - Search for artists and individuals in the collection
• get_person - Fetch detailed information about a specific person by their ID
• random_object - Obtain a random artwork with optional classification/culture filters

📦 Installation

1. Clone this repository:

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

2. 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
   

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

4. Create a .env file in the project root:

   HARVARD_ART_MUSEUMS_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
   

📚 Documentation

Claude Desktop

Add the following 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"
      }
    }
  }
}

⚠️ Important Note

Ensure you use the absolute path to server.py and include your virtual environment's Python if necessary:

• 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 as follows:

• Command: Path to the 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 pose questions such as:

• "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

🔧 Technical Details

The server utilizes:

• 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.

📚 Resources

• Harvard Art Museums API Documentation
• Model Context Protocol Documentation
• MCP Python SDK