Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was paid $1.04 million in salary and benefits in 2010, when attendance at New York’s most-visited museum rose to its highest level in four decades.

Total compensation increased 12 percent, according to the Met’s 2010-2011 tax return. Campbell, 49, earned $653,402 in salary, up 2 percent. Housing, retirement and other benefits were valued by the museum at $389,051. He was named director in January 2009.

Harold Holzer, a spokesman, attributed the increase in benefits to Campbell’s move, with his family, in September 2009 into a museum-owned apartment on Fifth Avenue across from the museum. Campbell lives rent-free in the apartment, which he uses for Met-related entertaining and events. Campbell’s travel wasn’t part of compensation, Holzer said.

The pay for the Oxford-educated former tapestry curator was in line with comparable top museum jobs. Glenn Lowry, head of the Museum of Modern Art, had compensation of $1.6 million in 2009. (MoMA hasn’t yet disclosed 2010 pay.)

Emily Rafferty, the Met’s president, earned $892,802 in pay and benefits. That’s up 5 percent from a year earlier and triple what she earned a decade ago as senior vice president for external affairs.

McQueen Exhibit

Attendance in the year ending in June 2011 was 5.7 million, up 9 percent, buoyed by a hugely popular exhibit of clothes and accessories by the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen. (Attendance includes visitors to the Cloisters Museum and Gardens in upper Manhattan.)

Raul Avila Inc., a New York event planning firm, received $1.3 million in connection with the Met’s Costume Institute gala in May 2011. Holzer said the money involves payment to a wood manufacturer, tent maker and other subcontractors.

The Met recently opened its renovated Islamic art galleries and a new American wing, featuring Emanuel Leutze’s iconic 1851 painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

Campbell’s predecessor, Philippe de Montebello, crossed the seven-figure threshold in 2005-2006, when his compensation was listed at $4.6 million. Most of the money was for a retirement plan after three decades in the job.

Today’s Muse highlights includes watches at Sotheby’s.