Philanthropist Nita Ambani was on Tuesday appointed to the board of the largest art museum in the United States, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Bloomberg reported. Nita Ambani had for years supported exhibitions at the museum.

Daniel Brodsky, the chairperson of the museum, said that Ambani’s backing “has had an enormous impact on the museum’s ability to study and display art from every corner of the world”. Ambani, 57, was elected to become an honorary trustee of the museum, a statement by the institution said.

The museum, which is 149 years old, draws billionaires, celebrities and tens of lakhs of visitors a year to see art spanning a time period of 5,000 years from around the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art reported an operating profit of $384.7 million (Rs 2,758 crore) in 2018 from revenue, support and transfers. However, it is a not-for-profit organisation.

“The Met [Metropolitan Museum of Art] enables Indian art to be shown at an iconic institution and further encourages us to continue our work in the art world,” Ambani had said in a statement issued in 2017. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which is owned by American businessman and politician Michael Bloomberg, also helps fund the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Nita Ambani is the wife of Mukesh Ambani, the richest Indian and Asian, who according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index has a net worth of about $55 billion (Rs 3.94 lakh crore).

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