Ion Ionescu-Quintus Prahova County Art Museum

The Ion Ionescu-Quintus Prahova County Art Museum is at 1 Bulevardul Independenței in Ploiești and is run by Prahova County Council. It grew out of the Ploiești city picture gallery, founded in November 1931 under the Nicolae Iorga Cultural Foundation by a group of intellectuals led by the lawyer, politician and collector Ion Ionescu-Quintus, the architect Toma T. Socolescu and the historian Dumitru Munteanu-Râmnic. Evacuated during the Second World War, the collection was reorganised in 1955 as the Ploiești City Art Museum, and in 2005 the institution received its present name. Since 1969 the museum has occupied the Ghiță Ionescu Palace, built between 1885 and 1894 (the LMI gives 1885) for the politician and banker Ghiță Ionescu (1833-1898) to designs by the architect Leonida Negrescu, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After 1919 the building housed the Prahova County Prefecture. It is a listed monument (LMI code PH-II-m-A-16267), and its last major restoration was completed in 2006. The painting collection covers nineteenth-century Romanian art (Anton Chladek, Sava Henția, Mișu Popp, Gheorghe Tattarescu, Theodor Aman, Ion Andreescu, Nicolae Grigorescu) and twentieth-century work (Ștefan Luchian, Theodor Pallady, Gheorghe Petrașcu, Iosif Iser, Ion Țuculescu), as well as the Seulescu-Stere donation. The graphic art collection includes works by Nicolae Tonitza and Jean Al. Steriadi and hundreds of prints acquired after 1990 through the Iosif Iser International Contemporary Engraving Biennial. Sculpture is represented by Frederic Storck, Dimitrie Paciurea, Oscar Han, Cornel Medrea, Ion Jalea and Ion Irimescu, and the decorative art collection includes contemporary ceramics and glass, nineteenth-century icons painted on glass and Romanian tapestry. The museum also runs the Nicolae Grigorescu Memorial Museum in Câmpina. According to CIMEC it is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00.