The new permanent exhibition opened in 2006 comprises approximately 400 artworks of outstanding quality and features the creation of the museum's collections and the their constant expansion in the past one and a half century. The exhibition is arranged according the stages of the development of the collection.
Object in the exhibition can also be studied in our collection database.
The donation of collector Magda Bácsi
In April 2013, the exhibition was expanded with a new cabinet, featuring objects donated to the museum by a single collector. In recent years – thanks to the generosity of this donor – about three-hundred far-eastern and European objects have been added to the Ceramics Collections of the Museum.
Magda Bácsi learned the love of collecting beautiful objects as a child, from his father. She is a violin player who returned back to Hungary from Sweden in 1994, with a wide-ranging collection. Her rich and important collection contains ceramic objects representing the art of about five millennia. In the collection, there are ceramic dishes from the Neolithic period, painted with geometric motifs, interesting figural statuettes from burials, ceramic statuettes shaped like animals, pottery with celadon glaze, unique porcelain pieces, including objects stemming from the famed collection of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1670-1733), as well as at least one porcelain piece from every single sunken ship’s cargo ever recovered by underwater archaeologists. This final section of the permanent exhibition displays over forty items from the much larger donation.
The taste and interests of the collector, as well as her affinity for both eastern and western ceramics are well represented by the two most precious works from her donation: the statue of an equestrian archer from the Han-period, and the large and decorative Art Nouveau vase from the Zsolnay factory, designed by Lajos Mack.
For the museum, this donation is indeed the promise of the future, as in addition to researching and publishing the collection, the museum also plans to display the objects in the new permanent exhibition, to be opened after the reconstruction of the building.