Art Museum of Craiova
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The Art Museum of Craiova was inaugurated in the summer of 1954. It was set up on the basis of the "Alexandru and Aristia Aman" Picture Gallery, founded in 1908, and included paintings belonging to the Dutch, Flemish, French and Italian schools - in general XVIIth century works - and paintings and graphical works by Theodor Aman, and European and Romanian decorative art. There were made then some acquisitions and were received some donations, among which we can enumerate: Nicolae Romanescu, Jean Mihail, Cornetti, Glogoveanu etc.
The Aman Picture Gallery was housed for more than four decades in the old house which belonged to the Lăceanu family (Aristia Aman's parents) and from 1954 it was moved in the palace where it is today.
The palace that houses the Art Museum of Craiova known as the Jean Mihail Palace - was built between 1900 1907, after the plans of the French architect Paul Gottereau, at the request of Constantin Mihail, one of the richest men of Romania in that time. The palace was meant to be a private residence. The rich gilded stucco-work, the painted ceilings, the skylights, the Venetian mirrors, the chandeliers made of Murano crystal, the columns, the Carrara marble staircase, the walls upholstered with Lyon silk, in various colours, the wainscoting, the iron works, the furniture in different styles, all were carefully executed, in order to give the rooms elegance and refined taste.
Constantin Mihail didn't enjoy the beauty and the comfort of the palace, because at the end of 1907 he got sick and in June 1908 he died.Jean Mihail, Constantin Mihail's younger son, inherited the palace. He didn't take advantage of the comfort and the luxury of the palace either.He became, after 1924, the richest man in Romania. He never got married and because he had no relatives left, he donated the palace and his entire fortune to the Romanian State, with the condition that a foundation bearing his name will be set up and will conduct charity actions. Unfortunately, the members of the foundation had very big wages and vague duties, so they weren't in a hurry to fulfil his testamentary wish, then the Second World War came and the communist period... and nothing came out of it.
In the palace, in time, took place several important events. Thus, in 1913, the Romanian King Carol the 1st and his family lived here for a while. For a very short time, in 1915, here lived King Ferdinand, too. Then during the lst World War, here was the German Headquarters for Oltenia, and, over the years, in the autumn of 1939, here lived marshal Eduard Smigly - Rydz, the chief of the General Headquarters for the Polish army and then the president of Poland, Ignacy Moscicki, both of them refugees in our country after the attacking of Poland by the troops of Hitler's Germany.
In the Jean Mihail palace took place, also, at the end of the summer of 1940, the Romanian - Bulgarian negotiations that ended, at 7th September, with Romania yielding a part of southern Dobrudja (the Cadrilater) to Bulgaria. Then, after three years, in October 1943, the palace hosted the big exhibition "The week of Oltenia"("Săptămâna Olteniei"). With this occasion, the inhabitants of Craiova could see, freely, for the first time, this palace that stayed, in fact, closed during Jean Mihail's life and after his death, too. Starting with September 1944, the palace was the Soviet Headquarters for the 53`d Army (which was a part of the second Ukrainian Front), commanded by general Manakarov. In the autumn of the same year, here, for five weeks, lived Iosif Broz Tito. Then, in the palace, was signed, at 5th
September 1944, The Agreement between The National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia and the Home Front from Bulgaria, agreement through which the fight between the two countries stopped and the Bulgarian troops participated at the fight against the German troops on Yugoslavian territory. Also from here, from the Jean Mihail Palace, Tito conducted the liberation of Belgrade.
Starting with the spring of 1945, the palace hosted different institutions, until the end of 1953, when it became an art museum.
As it was mentioned before, the Art Museum of Craiova was set up on the basis of the "Alexandru and Aristia Aman" Picture Gallery. At this were added important transfers from the Romanian National Museum of Art, and then acquisitions and donations (from which we enumerate, in the first place, the collections of the doctors Mircea Iliescu, Ştefan and Marieta Jianu). Thus, at the end of the year 2000, the patrimony of the museum was constituted of almost 12000 works of art, among which over 2000 Romanian and foreign paintings, over 6500 graphical works, over 700 works of Romanian and foreign decorative art, etc. Almost 2000 of these works of art are included on the list of objects which forms the national cultural patrimony.
The museum was conceived and organised on three sections: The Gallery of European Art, set up normally in five rooms on the ground floor of the palace, the Gallery of Romanian Art, which is set up at the first floor, the Hall of Honour and the Brancusi Cabinet, at the ground floor. The Romanian and European Graphical Works Section is not opened yet, because of the lack of space. The museum also has his own conference room, the famous "Mirrors room", with a capacity of 100 -120 seats.
During its almost five decades of existence, the museum lent works of art for big temporary exhibitions organised in Romania and in different countries in Europe and in the U.S.A. Also, there were printed many guides, monographic studies, exhibition catalogues, folders, postcards etc, the museum being thus well known all over the world.
