National Art Museum of Azerbaijan is the biggest art museum of Azerbaijan.[1] It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev,[1] a famous Azerbaijani theaterstagedesigner and theater artist. The museum's collection includes over 15,000 artworks. There are over 3,000 items in 60 rooms on permanentdisplay. About 12,000 items are kept in storage. The museum often changes the temporary displays so that more of these stored artworks can be displayed for a short time. The museum is made up of two buildings standing next to each other.[2]
The displays
Seven of the rooms in the first building show European art, and ten rooms show Russian art. European art includes artworks of Italian (Guercino, Leandro Bassano, Francesco Solimena, Lorenzo Bartolini), French (Jules Dupré, Gaspard Dughet, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant), Dutch/Flemish (Frans Hals, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Adriaen Brouwer, Adriaen van Ostade, Justus Sustermans, Pieter Claesz), German (Johann Heinrich Roos, Fritz August Kaulbach) and Polish (Jan Styka) painters.
Among Azerbaijani artists represented are painters Mir Mohsun Navvab, Bahruz Kangarli, Tair Salakhov, Azim Azimzade, Salam Salamzade, Vidadi Narimanbekov, Mikail Abdullayev, Togrul Narimanbekov and sculptor Omar Eldarov. The works of Sattar Bahlulzade fill one entire room.