From the very beginning the Collection of Paintings, Prints and Sculptures shared the fate of the National Museum – moving from one location to another until it was finally housed with all the other collections which are today part of the Croatian History Museum under one roof, namely in the building of the Orsic-Rauch Palace. Had it not been for the great care, efforts and love of all the people who had come into contact with these collections, they would certainly not have been preserved in their present state. The collections had undergone a true renaissance during the period they were in the care of Dr Marijana Schneider, who was their curator for many years; through her great efforts and love she catalogued and published logistical rounded selections from the Collection of Paintings and the Print Collection, creating a rich and broad base of valuable data which today provide us with great opportunities for the further study of this valuable material.

The Collection of Paintings was established at the National Museum, where it had early on 8in 1858) numbered 146 paintings, most of them portraits. A majority of the paintings came to the Museum through individual donations (Countess Kulmer had donated not only a gallery of 46 portraits of Hungaro-Croatian kings, but also a number of family portraits) and donations from state institutions (in 1851 the Regency Council gave the Museum the portrait of Ignjat Gyulai, the work of Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller). Through the good services of Juraj Haulik, the Bishop of Zagreb, and through the efforts of Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski, the Museum had early on (in 1851) received portraits donated by the Paulite monastery in Remete, the works of Paulite artists from the 18^th century. Individual paintings were commissioned and purchased exclusively for the museum collection (the portraits of Dragutin Rakovac, Franz Joseph I, Josip Jelacic and Juraj Haulik from the artist Ivan Zasche in 1855 and 1858, and the portrait of Josip Juraj Strossmayer from the artist Josip Franjo Mucke in 1871). The collection of works of art continued through the donations of individuals and state institutions, as well as through acquisitions. After World War II the Museum received fifty portraits from the Commission for Collecting and Preserving Cultural Monuments and Antiques (KOMZA), and continued to acquire works. Today the Collection has more than 1.100 works, most of them oils on canvas. They hold the signature of or are attributed to well-known foreign and Croatian artists, or, in some cases, they are quality works by anonymous artists.

Portraits are the most numerous and most frequently exhibited part of the Collection. They were painted between the end of the 15^th and the middle of the 20^th century. The portraits depict not only members of a number of families (the Draskovic, Erdody, Zrinski, Sermage, Kulmer, Jelacic and other families) who had lived in these parts, but also monarchs, members of the high clergy, writers, poets… As far as a large part of the portraits is concerned, their authors are either known or can with great certainty be presumed. The authors of portraits made outside Croatia include Jean Fouquet, Martin van Meytens the Younger, Stephan Dorffmeister the Elder, Johann Baptist Lampi the elder, Johann Michael Millitz, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Barbara Krafft, Johann Daniel Donat, Franz Eybl, Friedrich von Amerling, Josef Kriehuber, August Prinzhofer, Franz Schrotzberg, Wilhelm August Rieder and many others. The Museum’s collection holds portraits painted in Croatia by Valentin Metzinger, Johann Killian Herrlein, Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller, Vjekoslav Karas, Ivan Skvarcina, Jakov Stager, Mihael Stroy, Frantisek Wiehl, Franjo Josip Mucke, Ivan Zasche, Jakov Sasel, Vlaho Bukovac, Miroslav Kraljevic, Joso Buzan, Ivan Tisov and many other artists.

The Collection of paintings also holds 120 miniatures, which were painted between the end of the 18^th and the second half of the 19^th century. Most of the portraits of people from the middle class of Jakov Stager, Ivan Zasche and other artists, who frequently left their paintings unsigned. The greatest part of the Collection was acquired through purchases from antique dealers in Zagreb at the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century; some of the miniatures were donated to the National Museum, and the Collection has been increasing its holdings through acquisition to the present day. The Museum also holds a number of daguerreotypes.

The historical paintings in the Collection include works by well-known artists who painted from the time when this form of painting began to flourish in Croatia in the second half of the 19^th century, to the first decades of the 20^th century: Josip Franjo Mucke, Ferdinand Quiquerez, Dragutin Weingartner, Oton Ivekovic, Celestin Medovic, Vlaho Bukovac and others. Paintings with historical themes were purchased for the Museum very early on – in 1868 the Croatian Parliament had bought two historical paintings from the artist Josip Franjo Mucke and donated them to the National Museum. Over the last several decades the Collection has purchased some valuable works, most notably Bukovac’s ‘Croatian National Revival’ and Ivekovic’s ‘Zrinski and Frankopan’s Farewell from Katarina Zrinska’.

Town views, landscapes and themes from rural life are represented in the Collection with a smaller number of works. They include works by an unknown artist from the third quarter of the 18^th century, as well as by Vjekoslav Karas, Maksimilijan Methudi, Eduard Weingarten, Ivan Zasche, Vladimir Kirin and others.

Religious paintings are represented in the Collection with some eighty works dating from the end of the 15^th to the end of the 19^th century; the triptych from the ruined church of St Fabian and St Sebastian in Novi Vinodolski, painted in the 15^th century, came to the Museum at the beginning of the 20^th century. Among a number of altar paintings and paintings of saints, we should single out for particular mention the works of Paulite artists (including those by Gabrijel Thaller), as well as those by unknown artists from the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th century.

The Collection of Prints was not singled out as a separate collectio0n during the first years of the National Museum. Through his donation of a large number of prints to the Museum between 1900 and 1912, Dr Josip Brunsmid had in a way initiated the founding of the Collection. Along with other donations, in the beginning of the 20^th century a large number of prints was acquired from antique dealers from Zagreb and throughout Europe. In 1959 the Museum received almost 500 prints from the Academy’s Prints Cabinet. In 1968 Professor Saban donated 134 prints to the Museum; these prints were originally in the collection of the great collector Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski. The Collection of Prints now holds more than 5.000 prints, made using various printing and art techniques between the 15^th and the beginning of the 20^th century.

Portraits, with some 2.000 prints, represent the greatest part of the Collection. The authors include masters from the Aubry family, Adam Bartsch, Adrian Bloem, Cornelius Meyssens, Joseph Kriehuber, Albert Dauthage, Julije Huhn, Tomislav Krizman, Menci Klement Crncic and many other European and Croatian masters. The most notable works in the Collection are water-colour portraits by Franz Eybl, Joseph Kriehuber, Ivan Zasche, August Prinzhofer and other excellent masters from the middle and the second half of the 19^th century.

Scenes of battles and town views, which are also kept in the Collection, follow the history of our country and neighbouring regions from the Battle of Sisak, through centuries of wars against the Turks and the campaign of Eugene of Savoy, to World War I. The authors of the prints include Daniel Meissner, Georg Hufnagel, Jan Huchtenburg, Pavao Ritter Vitezovic and many other artists. In the series of water-colours from the 19^th century we need to mention a collection of some fifty town views by Joseph Leard; the Collection also holds a series of town views from our coast by Edmund Misera from the second half of the 19^th century. Another valuable part of the Collection are water-colours by Oton Ivekovic, Bela Scikoss-Sessia and Sigismud Landsinger of old fortifications in Croatia which were in 1896 exhibited at the Millennial Exhibition in Budapest. A separate set of prints in the Collection are scenes from 1848 and 1849; the authors of these prints are mainly Viennese artist, most prominent among them being Joseph Heicke.

Pictures of folk costumes, dating for the most part from the first half of the 19^th century, are a valuable and interesting part of the Collection, which also holds devotional pictures, some of which are very valuable works painted on parchment dating from the 18^th century, as well as philosophical theses printed on silk, Biedermeier greeting-cards, playing-cards (including three sets of cards of the Zagreb Hall), oleographs, as well as several interesting books from the 17^th and 18^th century.

The Collection of Sculptures is one of the smallest in the Museum. At the end of the 19^th century the Museum received a donation of several busts; the most notable among them are the marble busts of Fran Kurelac, Osman Pilepic and Mrs Hallart, the work of Ivan Rendic. In 1860 Count Corberon donated the bust of Josip Vrkljan, the work of Antonio Canova. Another by Canova, that of Napoleon Bonaparte, was purchased by the Museum in 1968. Today the Collection holds 120 portrait busts and reliefs, and their authors, apart from Rendic and Canova, include Anton Fernkorn, Ivo Kerdic, Rudolf Valdec, Stipe Sikirica, Antun Augustincic and others.

The Collection also holds several death masks, including those of Josip Jelacic and Dora Pejacevic.