Csontváry Museum

The Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka Museum was established in 1973 on the basis of Gedeon Gerlóczy's collection. Most of the oeuvre of this great painter can be admired here.

The exhibition displays study sketches done in Munich, and early paintings that show the characteristic features of his oeuvre that were present at the outset, such as in the series on birds including the Buzzard bringing down a bullfinch (Süvöltőt leterítő ölyv) and Butcher bird (Tövisszúró gébics), or on the painter's neighbour Mrs Prazsenka, for example as Old woman peeling an apple (Almát hámozó öregasszony).

Works created at the various stages of his career can be seen up to the large-scale symbolic compositions of the mid 1910's. These include the masterpieces on moral and philosophical models like the Entrance to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem (Panaszfal bejárata Jeruzsálemben, 1904) and Mary's Well in Nazareth (Mária kútja Názáretben, 1908), as well as the magical radiant paintings like Baalbek (1906) and Solitary Cedar (Magányos cédrus, 1907).

Further masterpieces transmit the poetry of the Hungarian landscape, the singularity of Hungarian mythology and the beauty of far-away lands. Among his main works, perhaps the one that most calls out to the onlooker is Mary's Well in Nazareth. The central figure of Mary holding her child stands out of her environment, just as in the Gothic altarpieces. The colourful and gracious figures of the women around her carrying water in jugs on their heads reinforce this image. For Csontváry, Mary is also the symbol of the eternal mother. The man with a moustache and a beard, pouring water into the well behind Mary is a self-portrait of the painter.

An archive complements the gallery in order to facilitate research work on Csontváry.