Hungarian National Gallery English

Collections

Panel Paintings and Wooden Sculpture from the Gothic Period

The Hungarian National Gallery`s late mediaeval wooden sculptures and panel paintings are to be found in two different exhibition spaces. While most of the winged altarpieces that are fully intact are displayed on the first floor, on the ground floor - in Baroque vaulted rooms that look onto the River Danube -, single-piece works of art, including components of one-time winged altarpieces that now qualify as such, are in the majority. It is here that visitors can see that the earliest pieces in the collection: works that date from the 14th century. Of these works, two sculptures of the Virgin and the Child, from Toporc and Szlatvin respectively, deserve special attention. Outstanding works represent the art of the period around 1400, the so-called `soft style`. Among these are statues of SS. Catherine and Dorothy from Barka and a panel painting depicting the Pregnant Virgin from the Batthyány collection at Németújvár. Here we also encounter a few interesting reminders of private devotion in the Late Middle Ages: a domestic altar from Trencsén and panel paintings of the Virgin Mary from Bártfa, Liptónádasd and Kassa respectively. In addition, it is on the ground floor that visitors can view the earliest more-or-less complete winged altarpieces in the collection: that from the high altar at Liptószentmária and those from the high altar and two side-altars at the parish church of Jánosrét.