Néprajzi Múzeum, Budapest

5 May 2019

Two years ago I visited this museum – the Museum of Ethnography – housed in a magnificent mansion opposite the parliament building, on the banks of the Danube. It was full of fascinating artefacts – the dress and textiles particularly appealing to me, of course – but  the interior and the displays were all rather tired-looking. I discovered that the museum was about to close indefinitely and would eventually be re-born on an exciting new site. There was a model of how it would look. See this video about the work entailed in moving such a huge and delicate collection.

Artist’s impression of the new museum site

Since its closure the museum has been posting lots of images and videos on facebook and youtube, to keep interest alive in its collection.  Today they’ve put up a lovely montage of old photographs of mothers and children, which I’ve just shared on to my drawnground facebook page.

I took lots of photos in the folk dress part of the ‘old’ museum. The pictures are not great because of the usual difficulty of photographing objects displayed behind glass – but they’ll give a glimpse into the wealth of the collection:

I didn’t make a note of what these containers were for – made out of horn or bone? – but they’re so charming, I couldn’t leave them out…

Ornamental towel. Kalotaszeg, 19th century

Update in September 2020 – construction work on the site is making great progress. The new museum is due to open in 2022.