Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)

The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest ( Hungarian Szépművészeti Múzeum ) is the largest collection of foreign art in Hungary . Another museum in the city, the Hungarian National Gallery, is dedicated to Hungarian art.

The museum, founded in 1896 and opened its doors a decade later, is housed in a neo-classic building in Heroes' Square , specially built by the architect Albert Szykedants and Fülöp Herzog, opposite the Mychararnok exhibition hall.

The main exhibition consists of six sections:

• The Ancient Egyptian Department, the core of which was the personal collection of the Hungarian Egyptologist Eduard Mahler (1857-1945).
• The department of ancient art, which was based on the collection of the Paul Arndt Munich.
• The collection of antique sculpture is notable for specimens of wooden sculpture from Austria and Germany. The public attention is attracted by a bronze statuette, made in the XVI century according to the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci .
• The department of graphics and engravings includes 15 drawings by Rembrandt , 200 works by Goya and two sketches by Leonardo for the “ Battle of Angyari ”.
• In the gallery of new artists are mainly romantics and impressionists - Delacroix , Rodin , Monet , Manet and Cezanne .
• The gallery of old masters is especially strong in works of the portrait genre. The core of the exposition is about 700 canvases of old masters from the collection of princes Esterhazy . When creating the museum, they were joined by paintings from the Buda Castle and estates of the count family of Zichy . Of great interest are the works of the mysterious Master MS from the altar polyptych of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Banská Štiavnica. The genre painting of the Dutch artist Cornelis de Man’s “Chess players” , acquired by the museum in 1871, is also distinguished by the unusual interpretation of the chess theme.

Although the Museum of Fine Arts was created as an exposition of foreign art, the Hungarian sculptor Victor Vazareli presented him with a large collection of his works. They are exhibited in the estate Zichy in Obuda .

The Museum of Fine Arts organizes temporary exhibitions in which world-famous museums, such as the Louvre , exhibit their collections.