National Art Museum of Azerbaijan

National Art Museum of Azerbaijan is the biggest art museum of Azerbaijan. It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev, a famous Azerbaijani theater stage designer and theater artist. The museum's collection includes over 15,000 artworks. There are over 3,000 items in 60 rooms on permanent display. About 12,000 items are kept in storage. The museum often changes the temporary displays so that more of these stored artworks can be displayed for a short time. The museum is made up of two buildings standing next to each other.

The displays
Seven of the rooms in the first building show European art, and ten rooms show Russian art. European art includes artworks of Italian (Guercino, Leandro Bassano, Francesco Solimena, Lorenzo Bartolini), French (Jules Dupré, Gaspard Dughet, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant), Dutch/Flemish (Frans Hals, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Adriaen Brouwer, Adriaen van Ostade, Justus Sustermans, Pieter Claesz), German (Johann Heinrich Roos, Fritz August Kaulbach) and Polish (Jan Styka) painters.

The second building built in 1885 houses Eastern art, represented particularly by Persian, Turkish, Chinese and Japanese art. Russian art is represented notably by paintings of Karl Briullov, Alexey Venetsianov, Vasily Vereshchagin, Isaac Levitan, Vladimir Makovsky, Valentin Serov, Vladimir Borovikovsky, Vasily Tropinin, Konstantin Korovin and Ivan Shishkin. There are also restored artworks of Russian avant-garde.

Among Azerbaijani artists represented are painters Mir Mohsun Navvab, Bahruz Kangarli, Tair Salakhov, Azim Azimzade, Salam Salamzade, Vidadi Narimanbekov, Mikail Abdullayev, Togrul Narimanbekov and sculptor Omar Eldarov. The works of Sattar Bahlulzade fill one entire room. 

The museum also holds easel and book miniatures of 17th-19th centuries, lacquered (varnished) miniatures of 18th-19th centuries and a collection of sherbet spoons, made from mulberry tree.

The first works were acquired from Saint-Petersburg, Moscow and private collections. The museum expositions were later shown in Canada (1966), Cuba (1967), Syria (1968), France (1969), former Czechoslovakia, Algeria (both 1970), Iraq (1971) etc. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 until 18:00.

References

Other websites

 Museum's overview (Bakupages.com)

Category:Museums in Azerbaijan
Category:Art museums
Category:National museums in Asia
Category:Buildings and structures in Baku
Category:1936 establishments in Asia
Category:20th-century establishments in Azerbaijan