The Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti) has an unexpectedly grand old masters collection.
“The fine arts museum was the greatest discovery of our Budapest trip,” declared my friend a few months ago. Like other tourists, he didn’t expect to stumble into an astonishing old masters collection in this neck of the woods. As most good things in Budapest, this hallowed institution harks back to the golden years of Austria-Hungary (1867-1918) when a confluence of capital and political will rapidly transformed what had been a provincial town into a thriving metropolis with cultural offerings to match.
How did this vast collection come about? After all, by the end of the 19th century the Habsburg treasures had been deposited to Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum and Hungary's "own" line of royalty ended with the Renaissance King, Matthias Corvinus, whose paintings and illustrated codices had been long dispersed.
The pivotal year was 1871, when the Hungarian state acquired the artworks of the financially strapped Prince Miklós Esterházy. The purchase included 637 singular old masters paintings – for example those by Raphael, Correggio, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Rubens, van Dyck, Claude Lorrain, Jusepe de Ribera, Frans Hals, Goya – as well as thousands of drawings and etchings. So valuable was the Esterházy collection that other museums, including the Louvre, submitted competing bids but by then it had been a national cause in Hungary to “bring home” the paintings, which until 1865 hung in the family’s Vienna palace.
Other pictures came from enlightened Hungarian aristocrats and high priests who bestowed their private collections on the museum. For example, in 1836, János László Pyrker, the Archbishop of Eger, in eastern Hungary, donated 192 paintings; for years, the art-loving Pyrker had been the Patriarch of Venice during which time he assembled an amazing body of Venetian old masters including Giorgione’s famous Portrait of a Young Man. Or János Pálffy (1829-1908), one of the wealthiest people in Austria-Hungary, who gave away 178 paintings from his Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, and Paris palaces and countryside castles.
Arriving at the Szépművészeti, simply “Szépmű” for locals, is a festive experience. From the city center, saunter down the elegant Andrássy Avenue or jump on the historic underground M1 line, getting off at Heroes’ Square, the grand plaza filled with statues of Hungary’s greats, real or imagined. The museum building was completed in 1906 by which time Neoclassical architecture had long been passé. The modern style of the day was the Art Nouveau – as evidenced by Ödön Lechner’s Museum of Applied Arts built in 1893-1896 – and critics ridiculed the fact that the Szépmű resembled a collection of Greek temples.
Classical architecture, however, did have its advantages. The Greek style projected timeless values of virtue and greatness and it was easy to “read” by anyone visiting the city, even illiterate people from the Hungarian countryside (not uncommon at the time). The grand staircase, the amazing portico with its coffered ceiling, the enormous Corinthian columns immediately conveyed that this was a temple of art, a noble place of pilgrimage.
The Szépművészeti was meant to be and still is a universalist museum, not a national museum. The idea was to take visitors on a tour of European art history, hence the striking thematic halls on the ground level of which the Romanesque, the Renaissance, and the Baroque are still an Instagrammer's dream (the Greek halls serve the temporary exhibitions). The subterranean level is layered with Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculptures.
Initially, the museum commissioned a bunch of plaster copies of famous statues by the likes of Donatello, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo, but these soon became unfashionable. People came to see originals, not copies! It was the post-WWII Communist regime that came up with a characteristic solution after the museum had been damaged by a bomb: store all plaster copies in the Romanesque Hall, away from the public eye.
This way, they saved money on renovation costs and generously protected people from being exposed to the Romanesque Hall's church architecture. For about seventy years, the plaster copies were biding their time in this “temporary” storage. The Romanesque Hall finally reopened to the public in 2018 after a three-year renovation. Most plaster copies were moved to a newly created exhibition hall in Komárom, in northern Hungary. Michelangelo’s Moses in Komárom – somewhat surreal and surely enticing.
But I am here to draw your attention to the superb old masters paintings, which are upstairs. I highlighted below some of my favorites with a short profile on each, but one can also just roam the museum’s august halls, relying on the informative wall texts. A word to the wise: a somewhat hidden second-floor exhibition hall contains wonderful late-Baroque and Rococo paintings by the likes of Tiepolo, Guardi, and Goya.
Keep an eye out for the Szépmű’s ambitious temporary exhibitions. Any gift shop? Of course! Café? Below-ground level! Just don't make the mistake of going on a Monday, because you will find the oversized oak doors firmly shut. Final note: If you live here or planning more than one visit, consider buying the annual pass for HUF 9,800 (€25).
1. The Coronation of the Virgin, by Maso di Banco (1328/1330)
Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) was one of the most important painters in history; he plucked Western Art from its Byzantine traditions and laid the foundations of naturalist painting, which is to say, rendering real-looking humans in real-looking places. For a truly immersive Giotto-experience, one must travel to Padova's Scrovegni Chapel, but even in Budapest it is possible to get a taste of Giotto’s brilliance through his most talented pupil, Maso di Banco (? – 1353).
The Coronation of the Virgin by Christ, a popular apocryphal story at the time, shows Maso’s solid understanding of spatial depth and movement – most of his contemporaries would have struggled to place the crowd of angels around the throne looking so life-like and three-dimensional, not to mention those playing music. But my favorite thing about this painting is the beautifully Giotto-esque faces of the angels: solemn, almond-eyed, bronze-skinned, and same-looking.
2. Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers, by Fra Angelico (1420)
Fra Angelico (1395-1455) was a Dominican friar-painter best known for his astonishingly beautiful annunciation fresco that is still the wonder of the San Marco religious complex in Florence (a copy hangs on my wall in Budapest). The above is an early work that embodies the transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance. What do we see? Hermits doing what hermits do: praying in the rocks, fishing in the lake, tending their garden, caring for the sick, burying the dead, going to church.
But things look strange. The size and the proportion of the figures are completely arbitrary – some are miniature, others barely fit into the boat or the church. What’s going on with that island and its tiny castle in the lower left? A child’s drawing comes to mind. Evidently, Fra Angelico struggled with depicting depth of space and differentiating between foreground and background. We are witness to the gradual transformation of painting from the planar and the two-dimensional to depicting the world as we see it. I know people who prefer this brand of heartfelt and passionate late-Gothic to the cold perfection of the Renaissance.
3. The Man of Sorrows, by Giovanni Santi (1490)
Giovanni Santi (1435-1494) was the father of a much more famous Santi – Raphael Santi – which is why he is often put on the backburner. But the fact that Giovanni was the court painter at Federico da Montefeltro’s Ducal Palace in Urbino, an important Renaissance center in 15th-century Italy, is proof that he was a serious artist himself (it was at the Montefeltro court that the young Raphael picked up his immaculate manners which served him so well in his dealings with Popes).
The painting depicts a sorrowful Christ, risen from the dead, with his wounds from the Crucifixion still bleeding. The dainty angels by his side show Santi's familiarity with the gracious style of Perugino, a leading painter from nearby Umbria who had an influence also on Raphael. That fly on Christ’s chest? A symbol of life’s impermanence, and a long-held painterly tradition to parade one’s talent by rendering the insect so realistic that a viewer might feel the urge to flick it off the canvas (please don’t do that).
4. Ill-Matched Couple, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1522)
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) was a man of many talents: mayor of Wittenberg, real estate investor, owner of a printing press, and the leading painter of 16th-century Germany. Cranach is also known for his close friendship with the Augustinian friar whose 95 Theses turned Europe upside down: Martin Luther (this didn’t stop the pragmatic and prolific Cranach from accepting commissions also from Roman Catholic clients).
After the Reformation, Cranach’s moralistic paintings became very popular, especially the “ill-matched couple” series, in which wrinkled old men and women seek love in the wrong places. Above, a toothless creep is fondling the breast of a sinuous young woman while she is stealing money from his purse. Look to your left for the reverse setup: old woman-young buck. There’s a crude, Gothic strain to Cranach’s works, which pay little heed to anatomy. Some people find this refreshingly addictive, others painfully antiquated. (Amazingly, the Renaissance-perfect Albrecht Dürer was Cranach's exact contemporary; you can find his portrait of a young man across the hall to compare and contrast.)
5. Portrait of a Young Man, by Giorgione (1508-1510)
Despite a short life, Giorgione (1477-1510) was an influential painter in Renaissance Venice; Titian’s early works, for example, are completely under his influence. Giorgione always creates a poetic, wistful, longing mood. Both in landscape – as with his famous Tempest, at the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice – and in portraiture, such as the painting above.
This enigmatic young man, whose identity remains unfortunately unknown, is shrouded in a dreamy melancholy. Is he in love? Lovesick, perhaps? Who knows, but he is surely feeling deep things, making the moon-gazing German Romantics of the early 1800s seem like heartless monsters. Very few Giorgione works have survived, so this one is an especially cherished possession of the Szépmű.
6. Virgin and Child with Saint Elisabeth and the Young Saint John and Baptist, by Bernardino Luini (1525)
When Leonardo da Vinci moved from Florence to Milan for the second time (1508-1513), his presence completely upended the Lombard painting traditions established by Vincenzo Foppa. The Szépművészeti has an entire hall dedicated to Leonardo’s most prominent followers – Bernardino Luini, Marco d’Oggiono, Antonio Boltraffio, Andrea Solario. It is amazing to observe all the recycled Mona Lisa-faces enveloped in mysterious greens and yellows.
Bernardino Luini (1480-1532) is usually regarded as the most talented of the bunch. The Virgin above holding the child perhaps can’t rival the impossible ambiguity and tenderness of Leonardo’s Madonnas, but it is surely a beautiful work that can stand on its own. The room also holds a bronze statuette attributed to Leonardo himself (see below).
7. Horse and Rider, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (early 16th century)
A precious possession of the Szépmű is the small bronze statue of horse and rider attributed to Leonardo. He designed two large equestrian statues – one for the Duke of Milan, the other for France’s Renaissance King, Francis I – but neither of them materialized. The statuette above was likely a model for the latter in which Leonardo worked out the structural challenges of the energetically rearing horse. Scholars believe that only the horse was done by the hand of Leonardo and that the rider is likely a workshop piece (the rider's face looks particularly crude). Similar to the heart-wrenching Venus and Adonis, see below, this statuette was part of the collection of the Hungarian sculptor, István Ferenczy.
8. The Esterházy Madonna, by Raphael (1508)
Raphael (1483-1520), perhaps the most famous painter in history, had an unusual skill for composition, always gently leading the viewer’s eye to his protagonists who are placed in a blissful pastoral scene as far as the eye can see. Raphael also set the standard for female beauty in Western Art for hundreds of years with his depictions of the Virgin that are usually described as "lovely," "noble," and "tender." The Esterházy Madonna is also notable for the fact that it was Raphael's last painting before his style yielded to Michelangelo’s influence (and came: muscular figures! bright colors! frantic movements!).
Not so fun fact: in 1983, together with a few Giorgione, Tintoretto, and Tiepolo paintings, an Italian-Hungarian crime group stole broke into the Szépmű and stole the Esterházy Madonna. After a two-months-long international manhunt, the paintings were found in Greece, in the city of Aigio, inside a monastery, hidden in a suitcase.
9. Portrait of a Woman, by circle of Bronzino (1560)
Bronzino (1503-1572) was a portrait painter of the Florentine nobility; he did, for example, the finest portraits of Cosimo I de' Medici, always tactfully concealing the Grand Duke's severe strabismus. Bronzino, amusingly, showed the Tuscan rich and wealthy devoid of emotions and shrouded in pretension. Titian's way of plumbing the human soul? Searching for the character behind the royal mask? Of no interest to Bronzino and his circle of followers. And yet there's something irresistible in his highly polished colors, his exceedingly elegant figures, the jewel-encrusted clothing, the lascivious references.
10. Hercules Expelling the Faun from Omphale’s Bed, by Tintoretto (1585)
Tintoretto (1518-1594) was to Venice what Bronzino was to Florence: the 16th-century star painter of his city, laboring for the local aristocracy in a highly personal, Mannerist style (by the 1530s Renaissance painting hit a roadblock and Mannerism was to dominate the rest of the century). But while Bronzino’s pictures are polished and detached, Tintoretto’s are fast and loose and dramatic. His canvases lack a cohesive composition; they are disorienting, with strange, diagonally placed figures shown in the dark or in bright light.
The painting above captures these peculiar qualities. We see Hercules kicking off his bed a faun, who mistakenly thought he would find Hercules’s wife, not him. Servants have gathered around and appear to be watching the scene with mild amusement, but there’s tension in the air. Positively strange – trademark Tintoretto.
11. The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1566)
By the first half of the 16th century, Flanders was an advanced region with sizable cities (Brussels, Antwerp) and middle-class residents who often preferred relatable paintings to mythological or religious themes as evidenced by the works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569), the famous genre painter of Flemish peasants. Using the pretense of a Biblical theme – Saint John the Baptist preaching – Bruegel is plying his regular trade here. The figures of Saint John and Jesus hardly stand out of the dense crowd, whose members are the centerpiece of the painting.
It is worth spending a few moments observing the faces from close-up. All dimwits and halfwits, hardly a regular fellow. They are gazing at the preachers in awe, in wonderment, in confusion, or some combination thereof. A man has a fortune teller read from his palm during the sermon. Bruegel’s clients likely got a real kick out of this mocking of the lower classes. In the first row of the painting, Bruegel placed foreign visitors in exquisitely rendered outfits; observe, for example, the beautiful linen dress of the person shown from the back in a Japanese hat. Another Bruegel signature: the wonderful deep perspective views far into the distance, past the charming Flemish town. (Vienna’s KHM is the pilgrimage museum for Bruegel fans.)
12. The Annunciation, by El Greco (1600)
With seven paintings, the Szépmű has the largest collection of El Greco paintings outside of Spain. The Crete-born El Greco (1541-1614) spent his formative years in Venice, which is why Tintoretto’s loose brushstrokes and elongated figures are never too far from his own. After failing to get work in Papal Rome and in King Philip II’s Madrid, El Greco settled in 1577 in Toledo, the ecclesiastical center of Catholic Spain filled with churches, monasteries, and religious foundations that kept him busy for the rest of his life. The cultured El Greco knew his Bible and knew what would sell in Counter-Reformation era Spain: straightforward scenes of religious fervor addressed to illiterate Spanish peasants.
Such as the Annunciation above, in which a yellow-robed Archangel Gabriel appears amid an illuminated sky to tell the obediently Bible-reading Virgin that she would conceive a child who will be the son of God. Centuries later, Picasso, Max Beckmann, and Oskar Kokoschka hailed El Greco as a proto-modern, who rightly rejected naturalism in favor of the spiritual and the expressionistic.
13. Tavern Scene with Two Men and a Girl, by Diego Velázquez (1619)
One of the all-time greats, Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) spent most of his adult life as Habsburg court painter for King Philip IV of Spain, so naturally his greatest works today hang at the Prado and some in the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna (lots of family portraits to facilitate those incestual marriages between the Spanish and the Austrian sides). The Szépmű's one Velázquez dates from the time when he painted genre scenes in the taverns of Seville (bodegones) as a twenty-year-old.
This early work shows the Caravaggian influence in its use of light and shadow, but the signs of Velázquez’s genius are already present. He elevated the tavern genre into high art the way he captured the banal details and the human character. We can almost smell the freshness of that crisp linen tablecloth. And how brilliant is the concentrated face of the girl pouring the wine and the way the liquid lands in the glass?
14. Penitent Mary Magdalene, by Gerrit van Honthorst (1625)
The Dutch Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) spent his formative years in Rome where he fell under the spell of Caravaggio’s extreme use of light and darkness (in Italy, he is still referred to as Gherardo delle Notti, “Gerard of the nights,” because he painted so many nocturnal scenes). In 1620, van Honthorst returned to his hometown of Utrecht and together with two other Rome-steeped Caravaggio disciples, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen, disseminated the new painterly style which came to be known as Utrecht Caravaggism.
We can identify Mary Magdalene by the vessel of oil to her left which she used to anoint the feet of Jesus. Using a rosary, she is engaged in passionate prayer. So deep is her guilt about the sinful life she has led as a prostitute that we see tears rolling down her rosy cheek. Her dark shadow on the wall enhances the striking white of her exposed skin. “Cow-eyed blondes,” is how the art historian Simon Schama referred to van Honthorst’s women from this period.
15. Wedding Portrait of Princess Mary Henrietta Stuart, by Anthony van Dyck (1641)
People don’t usually get excited about royal portraiture from days of yore because to our eyes these paintings often lack “truth” and the “real self” and seem overly flattering of their subjects. But if we accept that portraits of the high-born were improved public masks, modifications of the truth, then it is possible to savor the best ones, such as those by Diego Velázquez and Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641).
The painting above shows van Dyck’s 1641 wedding portrait of Princess Mary Henrietta Stuart, who, at the age of nine, married the prince of Europe’s wealthiest country, the Dutch Republic (her father was Charles I of England). The Flemish van Dyck, Rubens’s most gifted pupil, spent the last decade of his life in London as a star painter flooded with royal commissions. His technical brilliance was astounding. Observe the mastery of details in the princess’ wedding dress: her delicate white lace collar, the glittering diamond brooch, the gentle ribbons, the folds in her rich silk wedding dress. We can almost feel the texture and weight of all the fabrics.
16. Venus and Adonis, by Ferdinando Tacca (1650)
István Ferenczy (1792-1856) is remembered today as Hungary’s pioneering Neoclassical sculptor but during his six years in Rome, Ferenczy didn’t just learn from Canova and Thorvaldsen but also collected Renaissance and Baroque bronze statuettes which – 80 in total – are among the treasured pieces of the Szépmű today. Most famous is a ferociously dynamic horse and rider attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, see above, but I am partial to this heart-wrenching depiction of Venus and Adonis by the Florentine late-mannerist Ferdinando Tacca. Venus, of course, knows what’s coming and tries to stop Adonis but he is heedless and fearless.
17. Still Life with Ham, Nautilus-cup and Silver Decanter, by Willem Claesz Heda (1654)
Golden-era (17th-century) Dutch still lifes are among the strangest of all paintings, showing tables piled with half-eaten foods and fancy tableware. What’s the point? The Netherlands were the richest country in Europe and its citizens naturally felt a desire to flaunt their new-found capitalist wealth and prosperity. But it was also a pious, deeply protestant land, so a bit of moralizing was never too far – warnings about vicious excesses, gluttony, and reminders of our inevitable mortality. These two motivations merge in the technically brilliant works of Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680), who, together with the fellow Haarlem-based Pieter Claesz, revolutionized the genre that doubles as the "art of describing."
Oysters stand for lust, the simple loaf of bread for modesty, the burned-down candle checks the box for the obligatory memento mori, but Heda has more fun surveying the luxury items. Take a look at the beautiful nautilus shell with silver mounts, the salt container chock-full of salt grains, the polished ebony handle of the knife dangling off the table, the glistening fat on that piece of ham. The detail of surfaces and their reflections are startling. That spiraling peel of the lemon, imported by the Dutch East India Company along with other exotic produce from East Asia, was Heda’s way of showing off his draftsmanship.
18. Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in Haarlem, by Pieter Saenredam (1653)
The Dutch Golden-era master Pieter Saenredam (1597-1665) was known for his exacting paintings of church interiors. He would make detailed drawings and study the architecture plans before picking up the brush. The light-filled, peaceful halls belie the violent cleansing that had taken place inside these churches a century earlier, when the more zealous members of the Protestant community smashed the statues, stripped the paintings, broke the stained glass, and whitewashed the frescoes.
I am among those who find Saenredam’s matter-of-fact style completely enthralling. His precise and detached manner contains an element of lyricism, not unlike Giorgio Chrico’s wistful views of Italian cities from a few centuries later.
19. Brothel Scene, by Jan Steen (1668)
Perhaps no one did the Dutch moralizing genre scenes better than Jan Steen (1626-1679). His famous paintings of disorderly households convey straightforward ethical messages: too much drinking leads to foolish behavior; a messy home sets a bad example for the children; quacks pretending to be doctors are ridiculous charlatans. He would often include himself in the canvas as one of the corrupt characters. Moralizing though they were, Steen’s paintings are technically brilliant and fun to decode.
Above, we see a coquettish courtesan comfortably lying back on a sofa with wine in hand while her prospective client is settling the price with the brothel keeper. Signs of sex abound: the hole on the foot stove, the dog’s position, the shape of that pitcher, the lute hung on the wall. Steen warns us about the dangers of seeking physical pleasures in the brothel, since the painting within the painting shows a young man being chased out of a building. The glass ball strung from the ceiling is a symbol of the fragility and transient nature of life, which, we are reminded, shouldn’t be wasted on carnal pleasures.
20. Justice disarmed, by Luca Giordano (1670)
One of my favorites and one of the great Italian Baroque masters, Luca Giordano (1634-1705) was a famously prolific painter, a virtuoso who worked with unbelievable ease, hence his nickname, "Luca fa Presto” (Luca, the fast worker). Sharply drawn, vigorous figures and an extreme use of light and shade (tenebrism) characterize Giordano’s works.
Above, we are witness to the crushing power of love: even the wise god of justice loses her bearings to the irresistible force of Cupid's arrow. She is being disarmed, her scale (to measure evidence) and blindfold (to remain impartial) are stealthily taken from her. To the right, her ally, with the mirror of foresight, is invaded by ugly satyrs. Ostrich, another symbol of justice, is struggling for survival. Love, what a mess! You will find this painting in the Baroque Hall on the ground floor of the museum.
21. St James the Greater Conquering the Moors, by G.B. Tiepolo (1749-1750)
Saint James, one of the twelve apostles, enjoys a hero's cult in Spain thanks to a legend that he led the Christian army to victory over the Muslims in the battle of Clavijo (844). Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770), the great Venetian Baroque painter, was the perfect man for the job to depict this momentous and completely fabricated event.
Tiepolo's monumental canvases embody the decadent twilight years of the Venetian Republic – bright and heroic, with an "epic breadth of the grand manner," as the art historian Rudolf Wittkower put it. What came from Tiepolo's loose and rapid brush here feels both joyfully superficial and deeply intense, featuring his typical zigzag composition (follow the line from the sword on the ground to the cherubs up top). Note that this picture is located in the Baroque Hall on the ground level and that there are smaller Tiepolo oil studies on the second floor.
22. The Water Carrier, by Francisco Goya (1808-1812)
As court painter for the Spanish King Charles IV, Francisco Goya (1746-1828) painted countless portraits of the Spanish aristocracy. These official works show the hand of a fluent and practical artist who knew how to tailor an image to fit what was expected by patron or sitter.
Starting in the late 1790s and with the onset of the brutal war between Napoleon’s France and Spain (1808-1814), Goya’s routine Neoclassicism gave way to something harsher and more expressive. He became openly critical of the country’s backwardness, but also memorialized the heroic behavior of the Spanish independence fighters, such as the girl above bringing water to her compatriots on the battlefield. The free brushstrokes, the visible splotches of paint on her clothes, and the low angle view all enhance her sense of effortless confidence and usher in the Romantic era of painting.
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