Preparatory work for a new permanent exhibition
After many decades, masterpieces of the Fine Arts Museum’s Old Sculpture Collection are again on display
MúzeumCafé 43.
In December 2013, after a gap of 25-30 years, a new permanent exhibition of masterpieces of the Old Sculpture Collection opened in the second-floor halls of Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts. Permanent exhibitions of the Old Sculpture Collection were traditionally staged independently of paintings from the start of the Fine Arts Museum’s history. In 1896 the museum building hadn’t been constructed, so the first independent sculpture exhibition was organised in the Museum of Applied Arts, where it could be viewed up to 1907. In 1914 the by now constructed Museum of Fine Arts saw its first exhibition of sculptures. In 1921 a permanent sculpture exhibition opened on the museum’s ground floor. From 1936 the collection’s permanent exhibitions were closely connected with the name of Jolán Balogh (1900-1988). At first Balogh used seven cabinets in the second-floor rooms for sculpture exhibitions. In addition the museum’s large stairway was employed, mainly for displaying stone carvings. In 1950 the sculpture exhibition was reorganised, also on the second floor, in a large space and now with 11 cabinets. From 1952 Jolán Balogh also installed stonework finds in the stairway, then the following year the Venetian puteals were set up in the Roman Hall. In 1977 Jolán Balogh’s exhibition was closed with reference to leaks affecting the hall, then in 1986–87 it temporarily reopened, then it was closed permanently. Preparations for a new permanent exhibition of the collection began in the autumn of 2009. Selecting the halls for the exhibition wasn’t the only issue to be resolved, it was also necessary to restore a significant number of works scheduled to be in the exhibition.