National Gallery of Slovenia
Slovenia's main collection of historic art, from medieval panels to the Slovene Impressionists.
The National Gallery of Slovenia holds the country's largest collection of historic fine art, spanning the High Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. The society behind it was founded in 1918, and the collection opened to the public in 1925 in the Narodni dom, a neo-Renaissance building completed in 1896 to designs by the Czech architect František Škabrout. Built as a Slovene cultural centre with a ballroom and restaurant, the house was gradually converted to gallery use, and a second wing was added in the 1990s.
A glazed entrance hall designed by the practice Sadar+Vuga links the historic house to the modern wing, and since 2006 it has sheltered Francesco Robba's original Fountain of the Three Carniolan Rivers, brought indoors from Town Square for conservation. The permanent display traces Gothic panel painting and sculpture, Baroque altarpieces, nineteenth-century Realism and the Slovene Impressionists, among them Rihard Jakopič, Ivan Grohar, Matija Jama and Ivana Kobilca. Temporary exhibitions occupy dedicated rooms, alongside a graphic cabinet, library and conservation department.
Highlights
- Robba's original Fountain of the Three Carniolan Rivers in the glass hall
- Slovene Impressionists: Jakopič, Grohar, Jama, Sternen and Kobilca
- Gothic panel paintings and sculpture from Carniolan churches
- Neo-Renaissance Narodni dom of 1896 joined to a modern wing
