Museum of Fine Arts

The collection of Georgian art

The Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts stands a step from Freedom Square and holds around 140,000 items: Georgian, Oriental, Russian and European art. It too belongs to the Georgian National Museum.

Its heart is the treasury of medieval art: repoussé gold and silver revetments, crosses, chalices and cloisonné enamel brought down from mountain churches and monasteries, where they had been hidden from invasions. The summit of the collection is the Khakhuli triptych, a gilded folding icon of the 10th–12th centuries set with hundreds of enamels.

Upstairs comes painting: Niko Pirosmani, Lado Gudiashvili, David Kakabadze, the Georgian twentieth century. Two lines meet under one roof: anonymous masters of the chisel and painters known by name.