Art Museum in the Bánffy Palace

The Cluj-Napoca Art Museum is housed in the Bánffy Palace, on the east side of Unirii Square at no. 30, in the historic centre of Cluj, opposite St. Michael's Church. The palace was built between 1774 and 1785 by the German architect Johann Eberhard Blaumann as the residence of Count György Bánffy, later governor of Transylvania. The sculptures on the façade are by Anton Schuchbauer: on the attic, the Bánffy coat of arms, held by griffins, is surrounded by statues of Mars, Pallas Athena, Diana, Apollo, Perseus and Hercules. The building later had many uses: official residence, National Casino, apartments and shops. The Art Museum, founded in 1951, received the palace in 1956; after restoration work begun in 1960, the museum moved in in 1962 and opened to the public in 1965. The palace has four wings around a rectangular inner courtyard. The original interior decoration survives best on the upper floor of the west wing. The National Gallery, the permanent exhibition, occupies 15 rooms on the upper floor, with 138 paintings and 15 sculptures from the 16th to the 20th century: Transylvanian icons, the late Gothic altarpiece from the church of Jimbor (Brașov County), Transylvanian portraits of the 18th and 19th centuries and works by Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu, Ion Andreescu, Ștefan Luchian, Nicolae Tonitza, Theodor Pallady and Gheorghe Petrașcu. Many of the Grigorescu and Luchian works come from the collection of the lawyer Virgil Cioflec, donated to the University of Cluj in 1930. The palace also hosts temporary exhibitions. The Bánffy Palace is a category A historic monument, code CJ-II-m-A-07497. The building is public property of Cluj County, and the museum is an institution of Cluj County Council. Did you know that in 1925 a cinema was even built in the palace courtyard, at a time when the building served purposes other than a museum?