Art Museum Cluj-Napoca
Romanian and European art in the Banffy Palace, Cluj's principal Baroque building.
The Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca occupies the Banffy Palace on the city's central Union Square. The palace was built between 1774 and 1785 for Count Gyorgy Banffy, governor of Transylvania, to designs by the German architect Johann Eberhard Blaumann, and is regarded as the most important Baroque building in Cluj. Its entrance front carries a sculpted attic with figures and coats of arms by Anton Schuchbauer, and an arcaded courtyard lies behind.
The museum was founded in 1951 and draws on the collection assembled by the lawyer Virgil Cioflec and on works transferred from earlier Transylvanian collections. The National Art Gallery on the first floor sets out Romanian painting and sculpture from the fifteenth century onwards, including altarpieces from Saxon churches, Baroque and nineteenth-century works, and an interwar avant-garde section. Further holdings cover graphic art, decorative art and recent art, and the museum runs a continuous programme of temporary exhibitions.
Highlights
- Baroque palace of 1774-85 with sculpted attic by Anton Schuchbauer
- National Art Gallery covering five centuries of Romanian art
- Medieval altarpieces from Transylvanian Saxon churches
- Arcaded inner courtyard used for events
