With its bright green renovated gardens surrounding the stark white Corinthian columns of Mihály Pollack’s grandiose edifice, the Hungarian National Museum is a relaxing place to spend time inside and out.
It also played its own role in Hungarian history – though the exact story of the events that took place here in 1848, shortly after the museum opened, varies from the popular version, as visitors on the tour will find out.
Your guide first takes you to the most precious item in the museum’s entire permanent collection. This side room (mind the step!) is kept at a specifically low temperature and is low-lit in order not to damage the Coronation Mantle. A half-moon of embroidered Byzantine silk and gold thread, it was commissioned in 1031 by Hungary’s first king, István I, who is depicted at the bottom, along with his wife Gisela. The year coincides with the death of their son, Imre, his likeness displayed between the couple. Christ’s triumph over evil centrepieces the mantle – martyrs, apostles and prophets are set out in rows around him.
Bizarrely, this prime exhibit is given no detailed documentation, although elsewhere in the 20 rooms dedicated to Hungarian history, English and Hungarian texts are provided throughout. Either side of the mantle, the two chests were used to transport and keep exhibits safe during World War II.
The walk up the ornate staircase gives your guide the opportunity to talk you through the history of the museum and the building that contains it. Outside, a statue of Ferencz Széchényi honours the man, father of István of Chain Bridge fame, who donated his 16,000-strong collection of historical artefacts to create a national archive in 1802.
Around the walls on the second-floor staircase, frescos by Károly Lotz depict the history of Hungary – that’s Count István Széchenyi and his contemporaries Kossuth, Deák and Petőfi over the doorway. Across the hallway a large door remains closed – this was where the Upper House of Hungarian Parliament convened before the Parliament building was opened in 1904.
Through a smaller doorway to the left is Room 1. The main collection is divided before and after the watershed of the Turkish occupation. A map illustrates the proximity of Byzantium – whose influence in religion and trade your guide explains.
Glittering in the middle of Room 1, the Monomachus Crown belonged to the Byzantine emperor of the same name in the mid 11th century and comprises seven gold plates showing his wife, her sister and allegorical figures. Dug up by a farmer in present-day Slovakia in 1860, the crown was then sold to the museum by the landowner.
Behind it, the so-called Margaret Island Crown was discovered in the ruins of the convent where Saint Margaret spent her last years. The crown, in French style, was probably used for the burial of her brother, István V, on Margaret Island in 1272.
Room 2 covers the period after the Anjou dynasty took over. Pride of place here goes to the Statue of St George killing the dragon – this is a replica of the 14th-century Transylvanian original in Prague Castle. Look out, too, for the so-called Jankovich Saddle, named after the nobleman who donated it rather than the rider who sat on it – who may have been Count Dracula.
Your guide will point out yet another chasuble – a kind of ecclesiastical poncho – before you come to Matthias Corvinus and the Renaissance. Here you can see the original tapestry that hung behind the monarch’s throne – but you might not notice the imprints of horseshoes, just visible despite the expert renovation required after Soviet cavalry ran roughshod around the museum in 1945.
The Ottoman era is set in a negative light, a photo of the mass grave found after the Battle of Mohács set beside a portrait of Turkish ruler Sultan Suleiman. The Ottoman influence on furniture and fashion – roses, marigolds – is clear, though.
A corridor lined with depictions of noblemen, many wearing trendy yellow shoes, leads to a dramatic painting of the recapture of Buda in 1686. When Frans Geffels created it, Buda may have still been smouldering, as the artist died only a couple of years afterwards. It could almost be a photograph – there’s even an index, showing which Ottoman was which.
The second half of the museum begins with the Habsburgs and Baroque, accentuated by the kind of music that long-term Hungary-resident Haydn would have written for the baryton. A fiendishly complex string instrument, an original sits in a corner of Room 9, case intact, as if being coveted by Empress Maria Theresa whose portrait hangs opposite.
The Reform Age of the 1830s and 1840s saw the building of the Chain Bridge – painter of the famous, Miklós Barabás captures the foundation stone ceremony of 1842. By the time this historic landmark opened in 1849, the Hungarian Revolution had broken out, instigated right outside the building you’re now standing in, the National Museum. Yet your tour guide will tell you a somewhat different story to the legend still celebrated at this spot every March 15th. Heroic poet Sándor Petőfi did indeed read out an inflammatory text on the steps here back in 1848, but it wasn’t the Nemzeti dal of lore. What he did was to sign and present a copy of his fiery verse to museum director Ágoston Kubinyi. He entrusted the scroll to the museum’s loyal gatekeeper, Péter Kovács. A mannequin shows his smart uniform and dependable leather postbag.
Cultural and technological developments are also featured – Beethoven’s piano that Franz Liszt brought to Budapest but didn’t dare play will be put back on display this August 20th. You can also admire Mozart’s travelling clavichord dated 1762. In another room, a mock of a 1930s’ cinema has been created, lined with posters of the Hungarian stars of the day.
The collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the upheavals that followed dominate the end of the tour. One rarity is the black bodice that Empress Elisabeth was wearing when she was stabbed to death at Lake Geneva in 1898.
The two global conflicts are illustrated with posters, maps and newspaper cuttings, with one display dedicated to the Jewish Ghetto and death camps. The Hungarian Uprising of 1956, which raged around the State Radio building nearby, is commemorated with the left hand of the vast statue of Stalin that was toppled before the Soviets stamped out all protest.
The tour ends in 1989, some 1,100 years after it started, with the reburial of 1956 leader Imre Nagy, the last major political act before the Change of Regime later that same year.
Hungarian National Museum District VIII. Múzeum körút 14
Open: Tue-Sun 10am-6pm Tour information here
