Historic

The National Museum of Art of Moldova, one of the most prestigious museum institutions in Moldova, founded in 1939, is located in the center of Chisinau, in three buildings, important architectural monuments from the end of the century. XIX - beginning of the century. XX: Hertza House, Kligman House and Dadiani headquarters. The museum also holds in its custody one of the most valuable historical monuments of the century. XVI, Church of the Assumption in Causeni with a painting - unique for the Republic of Moldova, made in 1763.

The Dadiani headquarters, where in the last decades, the museum keeps a large part of the collections and carries out the entire exhibition activity, was built in 1901, after the project of the architect Alexandru Bernardazzi, at the initiative and from the funds of Princess Natalia Dadiani, as a gymnasium for girls. until World War II. Subsequently, the building housed various institutions, including the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the MSSR, the Palace of Pioneers and Students, the last beneficiary being the Museum of the Communist Party of Moldova. In 1989, following its liquidation, the building, together with the two annexes, in an advanced state of degradation, after the damage caused by the 1986 earthquake, was sent to the National Museum of Art. Shortly after three more consecutive earthquakes in 1990, the central part of the building with the central entrance on 31 August Street, being severely damaged, was closed to the public. The long period of economic reforms that followed, the lack of investment for the consolidation and restoration of monuments, restricted public access to exhibition spaces on a considerable area of ​​the building, for a period of over twenty-five years. The restricted permanent and temporary exhibitions being organized, without interruption, in the exhibition spaces located in its annexes.

The museum's patrimony includes a wide range of cultural values, over 39 thousand pieces, systematized in collections: ancient art (sculpture, decorative art, numismatics) from the 15th century. IV-I î. H.– II-d. H .; late and popular medieval art (consisting mostly of icons, cult objects, old books, textiles, traditional costume); modern and contemporary national art (painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative art, 19th-21st centuries); Russian art (icons, painting, graphics and miniature); Western European universal art: painting, graphics, sculpture and decorative art (Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, 17th-20th centuries); numismatics and medals (Egypt, Greece, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, England, Ireland, Sweden, etc., 16th-20th centuries); oriental art (Japan, China, Tibet, XVIII-XX centuries).

The original collection, from 1939, which was the basis of the museum's foundation, contained a wide range of paintings, graphics, sculpture and decorative art, mostly from private donations of remarkable Bessarabian artists, and some of the works , signed by Th. Pallady, N. Tonitza, H. Maxy, I. Jalea, were sent to the museum by the Ministry of Cults and Arts in Bucharest. After the Soviet occupation of 1940, in a short time, the collection had grown numerically to be completed with works from confiscated private collections, but at the beginning of the war of 1941 the entire collection was transferred to Tiraspol and then to Kharkov, where it disappeared without follow. After the war, the museum restored its collections from transfers of works from major Russian museums (Hermitage Museum and Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, A. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow) and from various private donations (Pavel Shilingovschi, Auguste Baillayre, Ana and Ion Croitoru, Vasile Blinov and others). Later, in the post-war period, the museum's collection developed based on numerous acquisitions from various collectors.