A genuine museum brand in Transylvania
The Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu
MúzeumCafé 43.
Tumultuous scenes were witnessed in the summer in the main square of Sibiu where the exhibition Salvador Dalí – Divina Commedia at ‘the Brukenthal’, one of the region’s most renowned museums, simply intensified the atmosphere. The high point was 26 July, the birthday of Samuel von Brukenthal (1721–1803) when, apart from the Dali display, visitors could enjoy free access to all the exhibitions in the Baroque palace and other galleries in the city belonging to the museum. After that, the ARTmania museum events of 7-9 August were in the nature of a ‘cooling down’. Yet the process continues towards the major celebration in 2017 marking the 200th anniversary of the collection opening to the public. According to its management, the Brukenthal Museum is Romania’s first museum brand. Since 2007, when Sibiu was a European capital of culture, systematic work has gone into getting the brand acknowledged. There was the Romanian Museum Communicator project with the participation of Rome’s La Sapienza University, the province of Dubrovnik , the Faenza International Museum of Ceramics and the Sibiu Lucian Blaga University, all working together within the Leonardo da Vinci Project. In 2010 the Brukenthal was the first Romanian museum to receive an EU Europa Nostra award and the following year it was similarly Romania’s first museum to be invited to join the European Best in Heritage Excellence Club. Given that the Brukenthal Museum has become Sibiu’s symbol, it’s natural that the brand logo of the museum is the façade of the Baroque palace and the brand image is a portrait of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, the founder of Transylvania’s, indeed Romania’s, first museum. In 1774 Samuel von Brukenthal was 54 years old. He reached the pinnacle of his career as the head of the Vienna court’s chancellery and a few years later as governor of Transylvania, a position he held for ten years. In 1788 he began the reconstruction of his Sibiu palace, which became the centre of political and social life in Transylvania. His collection became famous across Europe even while he was living in Vienna, given that his most intensive collecting took place between 1759 and 1774. Initially his passion was for gold coins and towards the end of his life his collection contained 17,500 items. However, the most well-known, even during his lifetime, was his collection of paintings, which included numerous 15th and 16th century Flemish-Dutch and Italian masterpieces, which are still in the museum today. As indicated by correspondence between the baron and the artistic adviser to the imperial household, Birkenstock, the auctions, alterations of collections and lotteries were all to no avail because after a while the Viennese art market proved to be too limited for Brukenthal. So he began to obtain valuable artworks from Rome. The Pinakothek’s first handwritten catalogue, prepared by the painter Franz Neuhauser jnr., included 1070 paintings, which were exhibited on the building’s second floor. The paintings were complemented by copperplates, which in the opinion of the time as reproductions broadened the knowledge of the history of painting. The 1783 inventory listed 712 such works and later the number of engravings was increased. In addition to paintings, Brukenthal spent most of his time engaged with books. When his library opened to the public there were around 16,000 volumes and 200 valuable manuscripts. The gold mines of Érchegység (today Munţii Metaliferi) in Transylvania and the eastern Carpathians, which came partly into the possession of the baron, clearly had scientific importance for the collection of precious minerals. Fourteen years after the mineral collection started to take shape in 1780, a Danish specialist regarded it as one of the world’s best collections, and it was at that time that the archaeological collection started to be developed. There being no sole heir, in his final will and testament of 3 January 1802 the baron left his paintings, library and engravings, his mineral, antiques and coin collections, along with 36,000 guilders to the Lutheran Grammar School in Sibiu as final and indivisible property. The museum opened in 1817. After years of reconstruction work, the Baroque palace and building complex attached to its inner courtyard now constitutes a veritable museum supermarket, where a collection of plaster copies occupies the cellar, and the ground floor has a lapidarium, a map collection and a cabinet of prints and engravings. The first floor spaces have been renovated faithful to their period. From here there is access to the rooms displaying medieval Transylvanian art, the collection of Austrian and German painting, as well as Anatolian carpets. The Flemish-Dutch and Italian collections occupy the second floor. Apart from its rich holdings, the large number of visitors and supporters has also helped the Brukenthal to become a genuine museum brand.