The Mimara Museum (Croatian: Zbirka umjetnina Ante i Wiltrude Topić Mimara or simply Muzej Mimara) is an art museum in the city of Zagreb, Croatia, opened on July 17, 1987. It is situated on Roosevelt Square, housing the collection by its founders; Ante Topić Mimara and his wife Wiltrud. The museum, whose building is designed in the Beaux-Arts and Neo-Renaissance architecture style, houses a collection of over 3,750 objects, distributed across 9,453.79 m2 (101,759.7 sq ft), which makes it one of the largest art museums in the world. Collection includes Ptolemaic glassware from Alexandria, jade and ivory Qing-dynasty ornaments, 14th-century wooden crosses encrusted with semiprecious stones, and paintings from European masters such as Rubens, Giorgione, Bronzino, Bosch, Velázquez, van Dyck, Goya, Catena, Renoir and Degas. The museum catalogue comprises a wide range of works and collections, including paintings from Italian, Dutch, German, English, Flemish, French, and Spanish schools; drawings and prints; European sculpture and decorative arts; and collections of ancient civilizations, ivory, ceramics and porcelain, glass, furniture, textiles and carpets, as well as Chinese and other Asian art. The museum was established in 1980 and opened in 1987. The building itself originates from the 19th century, its conversion to a museum overseen by a Zagreb architect Kuno Waidmann; originally it served as a gymnasium. With its prominent location, articulated layout, and formal façades, the complex holds significant architectural, urban, and contextual value in shaping Zagreb’s Lower Town. It is protected as a cultural asset and listed in the Register of Cultural Goods of Croatia.
History
About its founder Ante Topić Mimara (1898 – 1987), was born on April 7, 1898 in Korušce, and was a Croatian art collector, painter and restorer. From an early age, influenced by visits to Split and the archaeological site of Salona, as well as by the teachings of Frane Bulić, he developed a strong interest in history and cultural heritage. His formative years were marked by the First World War, during which he served as a soldier. After the war, in 1918, he moved to Rome, where he worked in the studio of Antonio Mancini and studied art restoration, further deepening his engagement with European art and laying the foundations for his later career as a collector. Starting in the mid-1920s he began collecting art objects, a hobby that grew into a significant collection over the years. He lived in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, and Berlin, continuously expanding his collection throughout his life. Even before World War II Mimara had a noteworthy art collection, with professional texts about his works appearing in prestigious German art magazines. He regularly participated in auctions and visited the major European antiquarian markets and numerous exhibitions across the continent, establishing himself as a devoted connoisseur of art. Mimara maintained close relationships with a wide circle of prominent art historians and archaeologists. The significance of his collection is perhaps best illustrated by the words of Otto von Falke, founder of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne and director of the Berlin Museums: "…within a very diverse private collection… there are several well-preserved works of high quality."
Museum founding In 1948 Ante Topić Mimara made his first donation by giving numerous paintings and sculptures to Strossmayer's gallery in Zagreb and National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, which was later presented in an exhibition in 1969. He continued to expand his collection with great passion, transforming it into a true treasure that reflects the artistic achievements of millennia. Mimara lived in Tangier and Salzburg, spending his final years in Zagreb. In 1973, he formalized the foundation of a new museum through a donation agreement, intended to be established in Zagreb, and supplemented the collection with an addendum in 1986. To realize his vision, the central space of the so-called School Forum on Roosevelt Square 5, was adapted for the museum. Mimara approved the permanent exhibition plan, carefully detailed in a 1986 scenario. However, he died in Zagreb on 30 January 1987, before the museum's official opening. The foundation of today's Mimara Museum was established through his major donations between 1973 and 1986, including works from his collection and those of his wife, Wiltrud Topić Mersmann. Upon its opening in 1987, the museum’s art collection came under scrutiny from several art critics and historians. According to Thomas Hoving, "Topic Mimara's hoard of masterpieces are 95 percent fakes produced by him and his hired forgers.". According to Federico Zeri, the preview contained "trash along with some good things. Ninety percent is junk."; Ante Topić Mimara built his collection by forging, but also by looting and swindling. According to David Ekserdjian, Mimara "was pathologically inclined to believe his ugliest ducklings were the most gorgeous of swans. In consequence, and in spite of energetic attempts since his death to study his collection with appropriate rigour, as a rule a good dose of scepticism remains the correct response to the attributional optimism on display at the Mimara Museum in Zagreb" The museum denied these claims, maintaining on multiple occasions the authenticity and accurate attribution of its artworks, and asserting that both internal evaluations and independent expert analyses had confirmed the integrity and provenance of the collection.
Building
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