The Zambaccian Museum in Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 is a museum in the former home of Krikor Zambaccian (1889 –1962), an Armenian

Armenians in Romania

Armenians have been present in what is now Romania and Moldova for over a millennium, and have been an important presence as traders since the 14th century...

 businessman and art collector. The museum was founded in 1947, closed by the Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

 regime in 1977, and re-opened in 1992. It is now a branch of The National Museum of Art of Romania

National Museum of Art of Romania

The National Museum of Art of Romania is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, central Bucharest, Romania, completed in 1937...

. Its collection includes works by Romanian artists—including a masterful portrait of Zambaccian himself by Corneliu Baba

Corneliu Baba

Corneliu Baba was a Romanian painter, primarily a portraitist, but also known as a genre painter and an illustrator of books.-Early life:Having first studied under his father, the academic painter Gheorghe Baba, Baba studied briefly at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bucharest, but did not receive a...

—and works by several French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 impressionists

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

. It is located not far from Piaţa Dorobanţilor on a street now renamed after Zambaccian.

At the time the museum was founded (it opened to the public on May 19, 1947), the act of donation stated that it must be housed in Zambaccian's former home. However, after the 1977 Bucharest earthquake

1977 Bucharest Earthquake

The 1977 Vrancea Earthquake occurred on Friday, 4 March 1977, 21:20 local time and was felt throughout the Balkans. It had a magnitude of 7.2 with an epicenter in Vrancea at a depth of ....

 (which did no detectable damage to the museum building), the Romanian government created the Museum of Art Collections

Museum of Art Collections

The Museum of Art Collections is a branch of the National Museum of Art of Romania and is situated in Bucharest. It contains 44 collections donated to the Romanian State beginning with 1927 by the families of: Hurmuz Aznavorian, Dumitru and Maria Ştefănescu, Josefina and Eugen Taru, Emanoil Romulus...

, consolidating many of the city's smaller museums (and a good number of expropriated private collections). The Zambaccian collection still resided at the Museum of Art Collections at the time of the Romanian Revolution of 1989

Romanian Revolution of 1989

The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...

; it was returned to its historic location in 1992.

Artists in the collection include Romanians Ion Andreescu

Ion Andreescu

-Biography:He was born in Bucharest into a merchant's family. In 1869 he entered Theodor Aman's Fine Arts School.By 1872 he was an instructor of drawing and calligraphy at the Bishop's School in Buzău. In 1873 he left the Bishop's School for the Tudor Vladimirescu Communal Secondary School, also...

, Corneliu Baba

Corneliu Baba

Corneliu Baba was a Romanian painter, primarily a portraitist, but also known as a genre painter and an illustrator of books.-Early life:Having first studied under his father, the academic painter Gheorghe Baba, Baba studied briefly at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bucharest, but did not receive a...

, Henri Catargi

Henri Catargi

Henri Catargi was a renowned Romanian painter from Braşov.-Biography:Born on December 6, 1894 in Bucharest, Henri Catargi would eventually become one of the top Romanian artists, a major influence in the national 20th century world of arts and an inspiration for many young generations of Romanian...

, Alexandru Ciucurencu

Alexandru Ciucurencu

Alexandru Ciucurencu was a Romanian Post-Impressionist painter.A collection of Ciucurencu's paintings can be seen in Dr. Frasier Crane's apartment in the sitom Frasier, in the episode "The Guilt Trippers" .-External links:**...

, Horia Damian

Horia Damian

Horia Damian is a Romanian painter and sculptor.He enrolled at the School of Architecture in Bucharest in 1941, that same year he made his debut at the Salonul Official de Pictura at Sala Dalles in Bucharest. He had his first one-man show at the Ateneul Roman in Bucharest in 1942 and was awarded...

, Nicolae Dărăscu

Nicolae Darascu

Nicolae Dărăscu was a Romanian painter. He was influenced by Impressionism and Neo-impressionism.-Biography:...

, Lucian Grigorescu

Lucian Grigorescu

Lucian Grigorescu was a Romanian post-impressionist painter.In 1948, he was elected to the Romanian Academy. -External links:*...

, Nicolae Grigorescu

Nicolae Grigorescu

Nicolae Grigorescu was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting.-Biography:He was born in Pitaru, Dâmboviţa County, Wallachia. In 1843 the family moved to Bucharest. At a young age , he became an apprentice at the workshop of the painter Anton Chladek and created icons for the church of...

, Iosif Iser

Iosif Iser

Iosif Iser was a Romanian painter and graphic artist.Born to a Jewish family, he was initially inspired by Expressionism, creating drawings with thick, unmodulated, lines and steep angles...

, Ştefan Luchian

Stefan Luchian

Ștefan Luchian or Lukian was a Romanian painter, famous for his landscapes and still life works.-Early life:He was born in Ștefănești, a village of Botoșani County, as the son of Major Dumitru Luchian and of Elena Chiriacescu. The Luchian family moved to Bucharest in 1873 and his mother desired...

, Samuel Mutzner, Alexandru Padina, Theodor Pallady

Theodor Pallady

Theodor Pallady was a Romanian painter.-Biography:Pallady was born in Iaşi, but at a young age, his family moved to Dresden, where he studied engineering at the Dresden University of Technology between 1887 and 1889. At the same time, he studied art with Erwin Oehme, who, recognising his artistic...

, Gheorghe Petraşcu

Gheorghe Petrascu

Gheorghe Petraşcu was a Romanian painter. He won numerous prizes throughout his lifetime and had his paintings exhibited posthumously at the Paris International Exhibition and the Venice Biennale. He was the brother of N. Petraşcu, a literary critic and novelist.-External links:**...

, Vasile Popescu

Vasile Popescu

Vasile Popescu was a Romanian basketball player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics.He was part of the Romanian basketball team, which was eliminated in the first round of the 1952 tournament. He played both matches....

, Camil Ressu

Camil Ressu

Camil Ressu was a Romanian painter and academic, one of the most significant art figures of Romania.-Early life and career:Born in Galaţi, Ressu originated from an Aromanian family that migrated to Romania from Macedonia at the start of the 19th century. His father, Constantin Ressu, who was a...

, and Nicolae Tonitza

Nicolae Tonitza

Nicolae Tonitza was a Romanian painter, engraver, lithographer, journalist and art critic. Drawing inspiration from Post-impressionism and Expressionism, he had a major role in introducing modernist guidelines to local art.-Biography:...

, and French artists Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...

, Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

—the museum has the only Cézanne in Romania—, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

, André Derain

André Derain

André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...

, Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...

, Albert Marquet

Albert Marquet

Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement.-Life and work:Marquet was born in 1875 at Bordeaux. In 1890 he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work...

, Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

, Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...

, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...

, and Maurice Utrillo

Maurice Utrillo

Maurice Utrillo, , born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there....

, as well as pieces by two other artists who worked in France, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

 and the Englishman Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...

. The courtyard features a large sculpture by Romanian sculptor Oscar Han

Oscar Han

Oscar Han was a Romanian sculptor and writer. A student of Dimitrie Paciurea at the Academy of Arts in Bucharest, he was a member of the Group of Four together with painters Nicolae Tonitza, Francisc Şirato and Ştefan Dimitrescu...

; other sculptors with works in the collection are Constantin Brâncuşi

Constantin Brancusi

Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...

, Cornel Medrea

Cornel Medrea

Cornel Medrea was a Romanian sculptor.He won numerous awards, including Honorary Diploma at the Barcelona International Exhibition, 1929; Great Prize at the Paris International Exhibition, 1937; International Prize at the New York Exhibition, 1939; National Prize for Sculpture, 1945; State Prize,...

, Miliţa Pătraşcu, Dimitrie Paciurea

Dimitrie Paciurea

Dimitrie Paciurea – 14 July 1932) was a Romanian sculptor. His representational and symbolic style contrasts strongly to the more abstract style of his contemporary and co-national Constantin Brâncuşi....

, and Frederic Storck; Storck's own former home, also in the north end of Bucharest, is also now a museum.

External links

• Official site (branches of the National Museum of Art of Romania)
• An online gallery of works from the Zambaccian Museum
• Interview with Marcel Zambaccian, Krikor Zambaccian's nephew
• Le Musée Zambaccian (in French)