Art Palace of Georgia

Museum of Cultural History

The Art Palace is a museum of cultural history in a Moorish mansion above Alexander Garden. The collection was begun in 1927 by David Arsenishvili: first as the Theatre Museum, from 1974 the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema, and only in 2020 did it take its present name.

Inside is the Georgian stage and screen in objects: costumes and set designs, playbills, photographs, letters and personal belongings of actors, directors and musicians. The first exhibition opened here in 1928, and the museum has lived on exhibitions ever since, not only on display cases.

The building is part of the show: the staircases, stained glass and oriental rooms of a late 19th-century mansion, with a view over the garden and the roofs of the old town.