Städel Museum MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides AI models with direct access to the Städel Museum Digital Collection. This server interfaces with the museum's OAI-PMH API using the LIDO (Lightweight Information Describing Objects) format, allowing AI assistants to harvest records, retrieve rich multilingual metadata, and access high-resolution images.

Features

This server provides AI models with the following tools to interact with the Städel Museum's collection:

1. List Sets (list-sets)

Lists all the valid organizational "Sets" (collections, departments, or categories) available in the Städel's OAI-PMH interface.

• Inputs: None

• Output: A list of Set Specs and Set Names (e.g., Paintings, Prints, Drawings).

2. Search Museum Objects (search-museum-objects)

Harvests object identifiers from the museum. Because this server uses an OAI-PMH interface, standard keyword searching is not supported. Instead, you filter the collection harvest by date or category.

• Inputs:

  • set (string, optional): An OAI-PMH Set spec to filter by.

  • from (string, optional): Datestamp (YYYY-MM-DD) to get records modified after this date.

  • until (string, optional): Datestamp (YYYY-MM-DD) to get records modified before this date.

  • resumptionToken (string, optional): Token for pagination.

• Output: A list of OAI identifiers and the total number of records in the current harvest batch.

3. Get Museum Object (get-museum-object)

Retrieves deep, structured LIDO metadata about a specific artwork using its OAI identifier, including its image (if available under Open Access).

• Inputs:

  • objectId (string): The OAI identifier of the object to retrieve.

  • returnImage (boolean, optional, default: true): Whether to fetch the image and return it as base64 data.

• Output: Multilingual titles, artist names, roles, attributions, dates, dimensions, medium, web links, and the base64-encoded CC BY-SA 4.0 image block.

4. Open Städel Explorer (open-staedel-explorer)

Launches an interactive MCP App (UI) inside supported clients, allowing users to visually browse and filter the harvested collection sets and datestamps.

• Inputs: set (optional), from (optional), until (optional).

Related MCP server: artic-mcp

Licensing & Attribution (Important)

When using this MCP server, both users and AI agents must adhere to the Städel Museum's licensing rules:

• Metadata: The LIDO XML metadata provided by the Städel API is available under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.

• Images: High-resolution images are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

• Mandatory Credit Line: Whenever an image from this server is displayed or referenced, it must be accompanied by the following credit line:

  "Image: CC BY-SA 4.0 Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main"

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18 or later

• pnpm (for building from source)

Installation & Quick Start

If you are running the server from the source repository:

# 1. Enable corepack and install dependencies
corepack enable
pnpm install

# 2. Build the TypeScript files and UI bundles
pnpm run build

# 3. Start the server (Stdio transport)
node dist/index.js