The collection of the Museum of Fine Arts comprises of international art (other than Hungarian), including all periods of European art, and exhibits more than 100,000 artworks. The building of the museum was constructed between 1900 and 1906 and is a fine example of an eclectic-neoclassical style.
The museum’s collection is made up of six departments: Egyptian art, antiques, old sculpture gallery, old painters’ gallery, modern collection, and graphics collection. Interestingly, the gallery holds the second largest collection of Egyptian art in central Europe.
The Egyptian collection comprises a number of collections brought together by Hungarian Egyptologist Eduard Mahler in the 1930s. Subsequent digs in Egypt have expanded the collection. Some of the most interesting exhibits to see are the painted mummy sarcophagi.
The core of the antique collection was made up from artworks acquired from Paul Arndt, a classicist from Munich. The exhibition includes mainly works from ancient Greece and Rome. The most significant exhibit is the 3rd century marble statue called “the Budapest dancer”. The Cyprian and Myciaenian collection is also notable, also the ceramics and bronzes.
The 3000 paintings in the old painter gallery offer an almost uninterrupted insight in the development of European painting from the 13th to the late 18th centuries. The core of the collection comprises of the 700 paintings acquired from the Esterhazy estate. The collection is split up into Italian, German, Netherland, Flemish, French, English and Spanish art.
The main section of old sculpture collection is devoted to artworks from the Middle Ages to the 17th century. It was based on the Italian collections of Karoly Pulszky and Istvan Ferenczy’s. From the latter came one of the most treasured works, the small equestrian sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci.
The collection of drawings and prints shows selected rotating exhibitions of museum’s collection of 10,000 drawings and 100,000 prints. All periods of European graphic art are richly represented. Important pieces include two studies by Leonardo da Vinci for the ‘Battle of Anghiari’, 15 drawings by Rembrandt, 200 pieces by Goya and French aquatints.
The museum’s collection of 19th- and 20th-century art is less significant than those found in other departments. The bulk of the painting there is from the Biedermeier period of French art. From the latter are representatives of the Romantic period, the Barbizon school and Impressionism. There is also a large collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Constantin Meunier.