Over a period of a long time, Charles and Jayne Wrightsman donated ninety four works of unusually top quality to the Department of European Paintings, the final of which came with Mrs. Wrightsman’s bequest in 2019. Additionally, the Wrightsmans had the Met’s curators at their disposal, for whom they served as a virtual “auxiliary purchase Museum of Art fund for objects the Met curators coveted, however couldn’t afford.” European work on the museumIn 2012 the Met’s collection of European work numbered “greater than 2,500 artworks from the thirteenth via the early twentieth century.” As of December 2021, it had 2,625.