Sarah Goodridge, Beauty Revealed (1828). Photo: courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Sarah Goodridge, Beauty Revealed (1828). Photo: courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Art-loving brides-to-be looking for a non-traditional bachelorette party that adds a little culture into the equation ought to consider New York’s Metropolitan Museum for their big night out with the girls. Museum Hack, which offers guided tours of the museum’s collection with a quirky, subversive twist, now hosts bachelorette outings, Newsweek reports.

Nick Gray founded Museum Hack after his 30th birthday party, which he spent showing his friends around his favorite pieces at the Met. Though he has no art history background to speak of, Gray is a Met aficionado, and he’s gleaned some great, little-known details about its collection. As Gray told Newsweek, “the museum lends itself to sexy, salacious, gossipy stories.”

Gray’s business has taken off in the past year, with over 1,000 people signing up for a guided tour of the museum after a Daily Candy story about the operation. When he realized how many of his customers were women, Gray created his special Bachelorette tour, focused on love, lust, and marriage. 

The featured artworks include everything from an ancient statue of the goddess Diana that doubled as a mechanized drinking game, to the miniature painting Beauty Revealed (1828), which painter Sarah Goodridge sent to her paramour, politician Daniel Webster, of her naked breasts. Museum Hack has dubbed the piece “the original sext.”

The irreverent tours offer a perfect blend of high and low culture, giving visitors an intriguing peek at the drunken, sexy, and otherwise unexpected back-stories of works that line the hallowed galleries of the Met. At once classy and bawdy, Museum Hack provides a different look at New York’s premiere art institution.