Bucharest’s Theodor Pallady Museum reopens after revamping works

The Theodor Pallady Museum, a branch of the National Museum of Art of Romania (MNAR), is scheduled to reopen on April 24 following refurbishment and reorganizing works.

The recent transformation entailed expanding the exhibition area and a redesigned visitor pathway, meant to better highlight the museum’s collection and offer visitors “a current and coherent experience,” MNAR said.

The interventions targeted the inside of the building and its garden, redesigned as an open area for meetings and cultural events.

The museum houses the collection of Serafina and Gheorghe Răut. It includes a significant number of paintings by Romanian artist Theodor Pallady, as well as over 800 drawings and engravings from his Parisian period. These were donated by the couple to the Romanian state in the late 1960s, together with their own art collection encompassing paintings from the French, Dutch, English, and Spanish schools dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries, small-scale ancient and Renaissance sculptures, textiles, furniture, Oriental ceramics, and other decorative art objects. It is representative of the way Romanian intellectuals of the interwar period emulated the collecting interests of their counterparts elsewhere.

The building that houses the museum, also known as Melik House, was erected in the second half of the 18th century. It is one of the oldest merchant houses in Bucharest, and the only one open to the public. The house is named after its most important owner, Iacob Melik, a supporter of the revolutionary movements of 1848. He was responsible for the renovation of the house in the second half of the 19th century and for preserving traditional elements such as the upper-floor veranda, the interior wooden staircase, and the wide-eave roof.

(Photo: Muzeul Național de Artă al României Facebook Page)