The Peabody Essex Museum is a unique museum of art, architecture, and culture with nationally and internationally significant collections from New England and the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Islands. The scope of these collections-comprising nearly 4 million works of art and culture, photographs, books, and manuscripts-ranks the Peabody Essex as one of New England's largest museums, with renowned collections of maritime art and history; American decorative art, folk art, portraits, costumes, and furniture; Native American art; art from Africa; and art from China, Japan, Korea, India, and the Pacific Islands. It also displays one of the world's largest and most important collections of Asian decorative arts produced for the West.

These exceptional collections are set amid one of the nation's premier ensembles of early American architecture. The Peabody Essex Museum owns four National Historic Landmarks and several properties on the National Register of Historic Places. Three of these homes are open to daily tours, offering a unique look at life, decorative art, and culture in Colonial and Federal-era America. The Museum uses these collections to explore the creative interconnections between diverse peoples and their art, history, and culture.

The earliest origins of the Peabody Essex Museum date to 1799 and the founding of the East India Marine Society, a social and charitable organization of sea captains who had sailed beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The Society's charter included the establishment of a museum, at a time when very few public museums existed in Europe or America. The Peabody Essex has a distinguished history as an important center for culture and learning in New England. Located in the historic seaport of Salem, the museum offers visitors a remarkable journey through four centuries of world exploration, and the artistic and architectural riches it yielded.

The museum's vision for the future includes a commitment not only to showcase objects from the existing impressive collections, long hidden from public view, but to augment existing collections with the finest examples of art and culture of our own time. A 100,000 square foot addition to the main gallery complex will help fill that need. Construction began in the Fall of 2000 and is scheduled to open in the Summer of 2003.