Count on staying a while if you have any hope of even beginning to see what's here. Eclecticism and thoroughness, often an incompatible pair, have coexisted agreeably at the MFA since its earliest days. From Renaissance and baroque masters to impressionist marvels to African masks to sublime samples of Native American pottery and contemporary crafts, the collections are happily shorn of both cultural snobbery and shortsighted trendiness.

Founded in 1870, the MFA first resided on the upper floors of the Boston Athenaeum, then a Gothic structure on the site where the Copley Plaza Hotel now stands. As the museum was beginning to outgrow that space, the Fenway area was becoming fashionable, and in 1909 the move was made to Guy Lowell's somewhat severe beaux arts building, to which the West Wing, designed by I. M. Pei, was added in 1981. The move helped cap the half century of expansion of the Back Bay area.

The MFA's collection of approximately 350,000 objects was built from a core of paintings and sculpture from the Boston Athenaeum, historical portraits from the city of Boston, and donations by area universities. The early MFA connoisseurs were as enamored as any cultured Victorians with the great art of European civilizations. Nevertheless, they sought out American works as well; today, the museum's holdings of American art -- supplemented by intensive acquisitions in the early 1990s -- surpass those of all but two or three U.S. museums. The MFA has more than 60 works by John Singleton Copley; major paintings by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Fitz Hugh Lane, and Edward Hopper; and a wealth of American works ranging from native New England folk art and colonial portraiture to New York abstract expressionism of the 1950s and 1960s. Also of particular note are the John Singer Sargent paintings adorning the Rotunda. They were specially commissioned for the museum in 1921 and make for a dazzling first impression on visitors coming through the Huntington Street entrance.

American decorative arts are also liberally represented, particularly those of New England in the years before the Civil War. Rooms of period furniture show the progression of taste from the earliest Pilgrim pieces through the 18th-century triumphs of the Queen Anne, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Empire styles. Native son Paul Revere, much more than a sounder of alarms, is amply represented as well, with superb silver teapots, sauceboats, and other tableware.

The museum also owns one of the world's most extensive collections of Asian art under one roof. Its Japanese art collection is the finest outside Japan, and Chinese porcelains of the Tang Dynasty are especially well represented. The Egyptian rooms display statuary, furniture, and exquisite gold jewelry; a special funerary-arts gallery exhibits coffins, mummies, and burial treasures. The gathering of classical treasures, including marble busts, jewelry, and glassware, proceeds chronologically from the Cycladic period through the Roman era.

French impressionists abound and are perhaps more comprehensively displayed here than at any other new-world museum outside the Art Institute of Chicago; many of the 38 Monets (the largest collection of his work outside France) vibrate with color. There are canvases by Renoir, Pissarro, Manet, and the American painters Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam.

Three important galleries explore the art of Africa, Oceania, and the Ancient Americas, expanding the MFA's emphasis on civilizations outside the Western tradition. Highlights include rare examples of the earliest-known figurative sculpture from sub-Saharan Africa, expressive Melanesian works in wood and stone, delicate Olmec jade sculptures, and extraordinary Maya painted ceramics.

The museum has strong collections of textiles, costumes, and prints dating from the 15th century, including many works by Dürer and Goya, and its collection of antique musical instruments is among the finest in the world.

Fifteen second-floor galleries contain the MFA's European painting and sculpture collection, dating from the 11th century to the 20th. Among the standouts are Donatello's marble relief The Madonna of the Clouds and J. M. W. Turner's powerful work The Slave Ship. Most striking, however, is the William I. Koch Gallery, a former tapestry room whose 40-foot-high marble walls are now hung, nearly floor to ceiling, with 53 dramatic Renaissance and baroque paintings by El Greco, Claude Lorraine, Poussin, Rubens, Tintoretto, Titian, Van Dyck, Velázquez, Veronese, and other masters.

The West Wing, an airy, well-lighted space, is used primarily to mount special exhibitions, temporary shows drawn from the museum's holdings, and lively contemporary-art and photography exhibits. It also has the Bravo Restaurant, a cafeteria, and a café serving light snacks. From October to April, tea is served from 2:30 to 4 in the second-floor Upper Rotunda, and the year-round cocktail party "MFA Fridays," from 5:30 to 9:30 -- held weekly in summer and monthly at other times -- has become quite the social event. The MFA's Film Program brings new and classic art-house cinema to the museum's theater, often in conjunction with talks with filmmakers. Annual events such as the Boston French Film Festival and the Boston Jewish Film Festival are also held here. Kids can keep busy with workshops (Tuesday-Sunday) and special programs.

In 2005, the museum broke ground on a massive construction project that the trustees hope will keep it in America's cultural vanguard for the next 100 years. In its first phase, a new East Wing will be built to house the Art of the Americas collection, expanding the current gallery space by 50%. The contemporary and 20th-century art collections will move to the Gund Gallery, currently housing temporary exhibitions, and a new special-exhibition space will be built beneath the East Courtyard. Other aspects of the 133-year-old building's enormous face-lift will include a new glass-enclosed courtyard, the reopening of the Fenway entrance, and a "crystal spine" to run the full length of the museum. The first phase of the project is expected to finish in 2009; the museum will remain open during construction.