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BUCHAREST MUSEUMS
National Museum of Art
The National Museum of Art,
located in the former Royal Palace in the center of Bucharest, features
notable collections of medieval and modern Romanian art, as well as the
international collection assembled by the Romanian Royal Family.
The National Museum of Art in Bucharest
is Romania’s leading Art Museum. It was founded in 1948 to house the
former Royal Collection along with those of various other museums in
the country's capital. The aim of the museum is to provide a
comprehensive view on Romanian art from the early Middle Age to the
present, in an European context as broad as possible. The collections
amassed by the National Museum of Art of Romania come from a variety of
sources. They also reveal the dynamics of local museums in the first
decades of the 20th century.
The modern Romanian
collection features sculptures by Constantin Brancusi and Dimitrie
Paciurea, as well as paintings by Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu,
Theodor Pallady, Gheorghe Pătraşcu, and Gheorghe Tattarescu.
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Romanian Peasant’s Museum
The Romanian Peasant's Museum, founded
on 5 February 1990, is the expression of long-standing museum
traditions dating since as early as 1875 when, following Titu
Maiorescu's suggestions, the first textile art section was to be set
up, as part of the National Antiquity Museum; it displayed "countryside
handiwork such as clothing, carpets, woven fabric, cloth, a.s.o", of
which many items are still preserved in the thesaurus-like collections
of the Museum, as they are like messages across the time.
The collection on display includes 18000
pieces of pottery and 20000 examples of national dress from all over
the country, as well as carpets, icons, furniture, photographs and
films documenting the customs of rural life. The
Museum of Romanian Peasant
is the winner of the European Museum of the Year Award for year 1996. A
short visit to the museum will convince you that the award is well
deserved.
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The Village Museum
Located on the bank
of the Herastrau Lake, The Village Museum is one of the most original
and fascinating museums in Bucharest and contains an amazing collection
of original peasant homes drawn from around Romania.
Established in 1936, it contains over 300 wooden houses, windmills,
churches etc. from all over the country. The Village Museum
is an open-air
ethnographic museum, the many
different Romanian peasant homes, on display, incorporating the
traditional Romanian village
life. Many of the buildings are originals which were brought here in
pieces and reassembled. The oldest houses date as far back as the 17th
century. The museum
extends to over 100,000 m2, and contains 272 authentic
peasant farms and houses from all over Romania.
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Romanian National History
Museum
The monumental building which houses,
nowadays, the Romanian National History Museum is raised on a place
with an interesting history. The National History Museum occupies 8000
m2 and presents in 60 rooms very important exhibits gathered
from the formed National Museum of Antiquities and other similar
institutions from all over the country. With these exhibits it is
reconstituted the development of the human society on Romania's
territory since the oldest times till present day. One can see the
permanent exhibitions Treasure and Trajan's Column (in
the basement) and Lapidarium (at the ground floor), vestiges
concerning the human presence on Romania's territory from Paleolitic
(600.000 - 6.000 BC), followed by the Dacian's material and spiritual
culture, the emergence of the state's power structures in the medieval
society, the Fanariote reigns, the 1848 Revolution, the Independence
War - 1878, the two World Wars and Romania's entrance under the Russian
influence.
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National Museum of Natural
History “Grigore Antipa”
National
Museum of Natural History is one of the first natural history museums
established in the world. The
National Museum of Natural History „Grigore Antipa” has a wide
patrimony of zoological collections, minerals and rocks, paleontology
and ethnographic. It was built in 1908, by the noted Romanian
naturalist, Grigore Antipa. The museum has on display over 30 000 items
including stuffed animals and birds,
a beautiful
butterfly collection,
unique and controversial
skeletons of Deinotherium Gigantissimus which is 15 feet high,
the largest elephant ever found in the world,
discovered in 1896 in Moldavia,
excellent displays of sea life.
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George Enescu Museum
George Enescu Museum
was built in the early 20th century, in the French baroque
style by the architect Dimitrie Berindei, for Prince Cantacuzino. The
last owner of this house which is now a museum was George Enescu's wife
who was a member of the Cantacuzino family. George Enescu lived between
1881 and 1955. He enjoyed world fame as a composer, violinist and
conductor. He is looked upon as Romania's greatest musician. The
museum, now, houses collections illustrating the history of music
composition and documents from the life of the greatest Romanian
musician George Enescu.
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The Cotroceni Palace
The Cotroceni Palace,
the residence of the president of Romania, is a part of the Cotroceni
National Museum which is a specialized institution focused upon
reflecting the history of the Medieval and Modern Cotroceni, upon the
evolution and transformations that came up in time. The Cotroceni
palace, church and monastery reflect a three-century history that
interweaves political, military, diplomatic, religious and cultural
aspects, directly with the general evolution of Romanian society. The
present-day Cotroceni Ensemble proves to have an architectural design
of an obvious compositional and artistic unity. Its constructive
nucleus, the monastery erected by Serban Cantacuzino at the end of the
17th century, an exceptional quid mark of Romanian medieval art and
architecture, underwent many changes along over three centuries of
existence.
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