Apart from the National Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts is the most important and comprehensive art collection in Budapest and one of the largest galleries with works by old masters to be found anywhere in Europe. Its extensive collection of Italian, Spanish and Dutch paintings enjoys an international reputation. The collections are housed in a late, but nevertheless "classical" 19th C building (at present being restructured) with long rooms for the larger paintings, cabinets for smaller and more intimate items, together with architecturally interesting and individual rooms such as the Renaissance Hall.
The history of the gallery begins in the year 1870, when the Hungarian state inherited a fine collection of paintings, drawings and prints from Count Miklós Esterházy, who had assembled it over a number of years. The Regional Gallery, as it was then known, was first housed in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
As the result of a systematic purchasing policy, supplemented by various private collections and endowments, including a large number of painted panels owned by J. L. Pyrker, Archbishop of Eger, and paintings from the collection of Archbishop Arnold Ipolyi, the range of exhibits increased rapidly; as well as paintings and prints sculptures were soon also obtained. The most recent departments were the Ancient Art Collection (1908) and the Egyptian Collection (1934).
Plans for a representative new building to house the extensive collection formed part of the preparations for the Millenary Festival in 1896. The huge neo-classical building we see today was designed by A. Schickedanz and F. Herzog and was handed over to the city in 1906. The architects based their design on Ancient Greek and Italian Renaissance styles, as witnessed by the façade and the interior. The portico is very impressive; its huge Corinthian columns bear a tympanum with a relief "Battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithó", inspired by that on the Temple of Zeus in Olympia.
The ground floor contains the Egyptian Department, the Ancient Art Department, and temporary exhibitions of 19th C prints, paintings and sculptures. On the first floor will be found the Art Gallery containing works dating from the 13th to the 15th C from all the major European schools of paintings. The basement is reserved for temporary exhibitions and 20th C art.
Ground Floor
Ancient Art
On the righ-hand end wall of the hall containing the ticket-office is the entrance to the Ancient Art Department, which is closed until further notice. Displayed here are objects from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd C B.C., including work in gold, bronze and terracotta. Works of art from the 4th and 5th C B.C. include the bronze Grimani Jug (mid-5th C) and an Attic tomb relief. Etruscan, Roman and Greek exhibits include the marble figure of a female dancer (mid-3rd C B.C.) and a Tyche statue. A beautiful example of Late Antique sculpture is the relief on an Attic marble sarcophagus dating from the third century B.C.
Eqyptian Department
The adjoining Egyptian Department contains monuments from the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms as well as from the Late Period. Particularly outstanding pieces include gravestones (from different epochs), a Pharaoh's head from Diorit, a male bust in limestone (New Kingdom) as well as animal statuettes and other small bronze figures which demonstrate the high standard of metal-casting techniques employed during the Late Period of Ancient Egypt. Note also the stone-relief from a Ptolemaic temple.
Baroque Room - Renaissance Hall
The two-storey room lying directly opposite the main entrance contains Italian Baroque paintings, including some by such famous names as Guido Reni or Andrea Vaccaro. Along the centre of the Baroque Room lies the impressive Renaissance Hall, the surrounding galleries of which are reminiscent of an Italian palazzo. There are some fine 14th-16th C sculptures and frescoes, including some by Girolamo Romanino, Giulio Campi and other Italian Renaissance artists.
Graphic Collection
From the Renaissance Hall the visitor passes into the room housing the Graphic Collection, comprising some 10,000 drawings and 100,000 engravings. All the important schools and styles from the history of European art are represented. From time to time exhibitions, chosen from this comprehensive stock, are mounted; these deal with particular epochs and schools or with the works of outstanding artists and their circles. The collection includes studies by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Tintoretto and Veronse as well as drawings by Dörer, Cranach, Rembrandt, Manet, Cézanne, Gainsborough and numerous other well-known artists.
19th Century
The tour of the ground floor ends in the department devoted to 19th C paintings and sculpture; since the re-hanging this department has been housed in the wing to the left of the main entrance.
From an architectural point of view, the three rooms with their Ionic columns and heavy coffered ceilings are most impressive. The sculptures are dominated by the works of French sculptors (Meunier, Rombaux, Despiau, Rodin, Maillol, etc.), while painters include such German artists as Achenbach, Waldmöller, von Stuck, von Uhde, Piloty, Böcklin, Leibl, Menzel and others. The development of French painting from Romanticism through Realism to Impressionism is demonstrated by means of selected works by Delacroix, Courbet, Daubigny, Corot, Manet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, etc.
First Floor
Italian Painting
The suite of rooms on the first floor concerned with Old Masters begins with Tuscan panel painting of the 13th-15th C (including the "Coronation of the Virgin Mary" by Maso di Bancos). The collection is particularly rich in art of the quattrocento (15th C) and cinquecento (16th C). The "Esterházy Madonna" (so named after the family which once owned it) by Raphael is an outstanding work from the Italian Renaissance. By the same artist there is also the youthful portrait of the humanist Pietro Bembo (c 1504). Works of art from the 15th and 16th C from Central Italy include paintings from the school of Giovanni Santis from Urbino, as well as works by Domenico and Rodolfo Ghirlandaio, while those of the 14th and 15th C from Northern Italy include some by Gentile Bellini of Venice and Michele Pannonio, an artist of Hungarian descent. 16th C masters represented include Giorgione, Sebastiano del Piombo, Lorenzo Lotto, Filippino Lippi, Correggio, Jacopo Bassano, Jacopo Tintoretto and Veronese. Although Leonardo da Vinci is himself represented only by his drawings in the Graphic Collection, the Lombard school which he influenced so much is found in the works of many lesser-known artists. Of the Italian Baroque painters mention should be made of Bernardo Bellotto, Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Canaletto.
Dutch Painting
The Italian rooms are followed by the Dutch Department, which is of equally high quality. An outstanding example of early Dutch painting is "Sermon by John the Baptist" (1566) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder; Hans Memling, Petrus Christus and Gerard David are also represented.
The highlights of the paintings of the Golden Age (17th C) are undoubtedly the three works by Rembrandt, including "Old Rabbi" (1642) and "The Angel appearing to St Joseph", as well as the portraits by Franz Hals. Dutch landscape masters include Jan van Goyen, Salomon and Jacob van Ruisdael, while there are also a number of examples of "genre" painting and still-life.
Flemish Painting
Flemish paintings are distributed over two rooms and include works by Rubens, van Dyck and Jordaens.
Spanish Painting
The Spanish department also includes some first-class paintings, Spanish and Portuguese masters of the 15th and 16th C include works by El Greco ("The Atonement of Magdalena", pre-1580), the outstanding Spanish Mannerism painter. Later Baroque painting is exemplified by many famous names, including Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Murillo. The museum owns five works by Goya, including "Girl with a Jug" and "The Knife Grinder" (both pre-1812) and "Portrait of Senore Bermódez" (c 1785). Velázquez's early work "Farmers at Table" is also in the collection.
German Painting
Outstanding works by 15th and 16th C German artists include Hans Holbein's "Death of Mary" (c 1490), Albrecht Dörer's "Portrait of a Young Man" and Lucas Cranach's "The Angel appearing to Jehoiachim" (1518). Hans Baldung Grien and Albrecht Altdorfer are also represented. German and Austrian Baroque painters include F. A. Maulbertsch, Jan Kupetzky, Johann and Januarius Zick, Angelika Kaufmann and others.
English Painting
One room each is devoted to English 18th C painting (Gainsborough, Hogarth and Reynolds) and to French 17th/18th painting (Chardin, Lorrain and Poussin, etc).
Old Sculptures
The majority of the exhibits in this department are works by Italian artists. The outstanding work of the whole collection is the equestrian statue of the French King Francis I by Leonardo da Vinci. Also noteworthy are Baroque sculptures including some by Georg Raphaël Donner and Johann Christoph Mader.
Lower Ground Floor
20th Century
In this collection, which provides a cross-section of 20th C trends in art, the works most admired are those of Oskar Kokoschka, Hans Arp, Marc Chagall, György Kepes, Pablo Picasso and Victor Vasarély, the Hungrian artist living in France
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