A year at the museums - Number five: The National Fine Arts Museum

The palace in South Street, Valletta that houses the National Museum of Fine Arts is arguably one of the most elegant buildings in the city. It was known for many years as Admiralty House because, during British colonial times, it was the official residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean fleet. The building dates back to the late 1570s and its history mirrors that of the city of Valletta, which was constructed at around the same time. The palace was the private residence of a succession of knights of the Order of St John until the departure of the order in the late 18th century.

After Malta became independent in 1964 the building was beautifully converted into the one we see today as the National Museum of Fine Arts. It was opened as a museum in 1974 as a repository of Malta's permanent national art collection.

The greater part of the museum's contents comprises of artifacts belonging to the Order of St John, from the Grand Master's palaces, and churches. The works of art in the Museum of Fine Arts began to be assembled in the early years of the 20th century. These have subsequently been augmented by donations and bequests.

The entrance hall of the museum is dominated by one of the finest marble staircases in the Maltese Islands. This sweeps up to exhibition areas on the first floor, which are spacious and uncluttered.

The basement of the museum, known as the Loggia, is open to the sky at its central core. It frequently plays host to exhibitions by contemporary artists - and some of the most distinguished Maltese and foreign artists have shown their work in this space.

As for the permanent exhibitions, The Fine Arts Collection is displayed in a broadly chronological order with paintings grouped together by schools.

The early Renaissance is represented by panel paintings from the 14th to the 15th centuries. There is also an extensive collection of works by the great Baroque painter Mattia Preti, who lived from 1613 to 1699. He spent many years in Malta and was the official artist of the Order of St John.

The French knight and artist Antoine de Favray, whose life spanned practically the whole of the 18th century, has an extensive display of mainly portraits on the ground floor of the exhibition.

Works from the 19th century reflect the historical changes in the governance of the Maltese Islands, in that it became a British colony, after the brief two-year occupation by Napoleon's troops. The works of this period displayed in the museum are mainly landscapes, with the jewel in the crown being a watercolour by J M W. Turner of Grand Harbour, the only Maltese landscape known to have been painted by one of the greatest landscape painters of all time. Paintings and sculptures by Maltese artists such as Einvin Cremona and Antonio Sciortino from the post-WWI years, demonstrate the beginnings of indigenous abstract art, together with some works in mixed media.

As with most of the world's great museum collections, there is much that is not on public display, but held in the vaults of the building. There are also some old masters' sketches and prints, which can be viewed by appointment with the museum's authorities. There is even an impressive array of Sicilian majolica pottery works dating back to the 16th century. These, in the main, comprise a selection of pharmacy jars, which were used by the Hospitaller Order in the Sacra Infermeria.

And as if this were not enough, the museum also hosts a collection of fine Maltese silver.

This varies from liturgical pieces dating from the time of the knights to an extensive collection of silver snuff-boxes, a gift from a private collector in the early part of the 20th century.

The museum can be found in South Street, Valletta, just a bit further on from the General Workers Union building. It is certainly worth dedicating a couple of hours to checking out its hugely impressive contents.

The museum is open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. until 4.30 p.m. The entrance fees are: Adults €2.33, students and senior citizens €1.16 and children just 58 eurocents.

As with all of Heritage Malta administered sites, it is closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as well as on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and Good Friday.