This year, The Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives was first opened 100 ago. On occasion of the anniversary, the institution is undergoing a complete renovation. Perhaps the most important moment of that is that the permanent exhibition that has not been changed for more than thirty years is to be redone.

Our exhibition, presenting 19th-century art, surveys the work of almost 100 years, beginning in the late 18th century. Here we can see almost all the important works from the time of National Romanticism that have for generations determined the national visual memory. Including such major emblematic works of historical painting as The Women of Eger, The Mourning of László Hunyadi and The Christening of Vajk, the most significant historical paintings by Viktor Madarász, Mór Than, Sándor Liezen-Mayer, Bertalan Székely, and Gyula Benczúr fill two impressive rooms on the first floor.

In the adjacent rooms the visitor can see landscapes by Károly Markó as well as major works by József Borsos, Miklós Barabás, Mihály Zichy, Gyula Benczúr, and Bertalan Székely. A separate room presents the work of the greatest renewers of 19th-century Hungarian art: Pál Szinyei-Merse, Mihály Munkácsy and László Paál. The one-time ballroom of the palace displays works of Naturalist and early plein-air painting that in many instances paved the way to Modernism. Works by László Mednyánszky, Géza Mészöly, Lajos Deák-Ébner, Simon Hollósy, and István Csók form the backbone of this unit.