This is the entry where the most honest advice comes first: check whether the museum is open. The collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts has moved around Valletta, and the listing marks the museum as temporarily closed. If it is open when you visit, the collection is the best single introduction to European painting in Malta.
The principal art museum
The museum was established in 1974 as the main art museum on Malta. It holds works by Maltese and foreign artists and gives an outline of art on the islands from the 15th to the 20th century, covering most of the major European styles.
Its permanent displays include paintings, sculpture, furniture and household items. Many visitors come for the paintings, but the decorative arts help explain how the Knights and the local aristocracy lived.
The Admiralty House years
The museum began in the Admiralty House in Valletta, a 16th century palace rebuilt in the Italian Baroque manner in the 18th century for the knight Raimondo de Sousa y Silva. From 1821 to 1961 it was the residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, which is how the building got its present name.
The main staircase is often described as one of the finest of its kind in Europe, and it was the feature visitors remembered most. A later move was planned to the Auberge d’Italie, where the collection was to be shown under the name MUZA, the Maltese Mużew tal-Arti, as part of the European Capital of Culture programme.
Mattia Preti
The most distinctive part of the collection is the work of Mattia Preti, the Italian-born Baroque painter who also decorated the vaulted ceiling of St John’s Co-Cathedral. Two whole halls are devoted to his paintings, which makes this the largest collection of his work anywhere.
Preti’s style is dark, dramatic and full of movement. It suits a museum in the city that still holds so much of his output, and the paintings give context to what you see in the cathedral.
Other artists
The museum also shows works by Bernardo Strozzi, Valentin de Boulogne, Carlo Maratta, Giuseppe Ribera and Matthias Stom. British, Dutch and French artists are represented as well.
A section on Maltese landscapes brings together artists such as Edward Lear, Louis Ducros and J. M. W. Turner with local painters, which is a useful way to see the islands through earlier eyes. Sculpture includes work by Antonio Sciortino and Melchiorre Gafà, and there is a collection of antique maps.
Furniture and the decorative arts
The household collection covers furniture, majolica jars and silverware. These objects are less famous than the paintings but fill in the picture of daily taste in Valletta from the 16th century to the modern period.
Temporary exhibitions are part of the museum’s programme, so what you see can change from one visit to the next.
What to do if the doors are closed
If the museum is shut, do not give up the subject. St John’s Co-Cathedral shows Preti’s ceiling and the Oratory carries Caravaggio’s Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, a short walk away. Many parish churches around the islands also hold altarpieces by Preti and his circle.
Nearby sights in the Valletta centre include the monument to Jean de Valette, the National Museum of Archaeology and the Church of St Catherine of Italy. They fill an hour or two usefully while you wait for news of the museum’s reopening.
Seeing Preti elsewhere
Preti lived in Malta for decades and left work in many churches, so the museum is only one way to meet him. St John’s Co-Cathedral shows him at his most ambitious, with the painted vault telling episodes from the life of St John the Baptist. Other parish churches hold altarpieces in his strong, dark manner.
Seen together, the museum paintings and the church work show the full range of one painter’s output. If the museum is closed, a morning in the cathedral gives a decent substitute.
Planning
Check with Heritage Malta for current status and hours before travelling. If the museum is open, allow one to two hours, wear comfortable shoes, and visit in the morning when galleries are quieter. Pair it with a walk along Merchants Street, where a street market usually runs on weekday mornings.
