The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of my favorite places to visit in New York City. I have been going there for a long time and I love seeing all my favorite exhibits, especially the Arms and Armor exhibit.

On December 26th, 2021, I visited the MET Museum with my family and we checked out the Asian Art exhibit. Right before we entered the room on Korean art, we came across this beautiful vessel covered with small flowers. I thought it was pretty, so I took a picture of it. I also took a picture of the information tag so I could read some more about it. And that's when I saw something strange.

This vessel was clearly an octagonal shape. It had eight sides. So why did the information tag read, "Octagonal vessel with cover decorated with peonies"? I kept looking between the vessel and the information tag trying to figure out if I was just missing something, or if this object was really mislabeled. My family was just as confused as I was. This vessel was obviously an octagon. This typo wasn't just any typo, it was a pretty big oversight. This wasn't one word spelled wrong, they were literally two whole sides off from the correct shape.

I wanted answers. After visiting the MET Museum and the "hexagonal" vessel a second time, I decided to write an e-mail to the Collections Manager for Asian Art at the MET Museum. Today, I received a response. The manager told me that it was simply an oversight and that the data would be updated in the files and online database. This was amazing. I actually had somewhat of an impact on the MET Museum. While the object itself is not on display as of today, its page on the MET website was updated. I have it linked below with a copy of the original page with the typo.