The furniture exhibition staged in the Museum presents the most important works in the furniture collection at the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. Over the many years of its growth, this collection has become unique in its own right. The most significant examples of its holdings from Hungary and abroad were acquired in the period up to 1914; in the years after 1945 it was primarily the 18th- and 19th-century sections that were augmented. It was in the post-1945 period that the castle at Nagytétény passed to Budapest's Museum of Applied Arts. It has afforded and still affords the opportunity to present furniture in an appropriate setting.

The exhibition "Furniture Art from Gothic to Biedermeier", which opened in spring 2000, introduces European furniture art from the period 1440 to 1850 approximately. In the exhibition, staged over a larger area than formerly, some 300 items of furniture - individual pieces and suites - can be seen in 27 of the castle's rooms. The arrangement, which is tailored to the castle's architecture, follows the history of European furniture in chronological order, presenting the various stylistic periods, and thus the history of applied arts, by means of individual masterpieces rather than by means of interiors. Other furnishings - tiled stoves, tapestries, carpets, chandeliers, and paintings - complement the exhibition. These works are from the same periods as the pieces of furniture they accompany.

The ground floor of the Danube wing houses the first part of the exhibition. Preserving the most of the castle's medieval architectural details, these rooms - with their irregular ground plans and low vaulted ceilings - were most suitable for the display of the Gothic and Renaissance furniture. The material shown here represents European furniture art developing within the framework of medieval joinery.



By moving the mouse over the plan, you can look inside the ground-floor rooms of the castle.

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