Latvian Museum of Foreign Art

The Latvian Museum of Foreign Art, now known as the Art Museum Riga Bourse (Latvian: Mākslas muzejs Rīgas Birža), is the principal museum in Latvia dedicated to world art outside the country's own borders. Located in Riga, it holds the most extensive collection of foreign art in the nation, with holdings spanning from Ancient Egyptian artifacts of the fourth millennium BC to contemporary Asian art of the 21st century. The museum's significance lies in its role as the primary repository for Western European, Near Eastern, and Far Eastern art in Latvia, making it one of the country's most important cultural institutions.

The museum's origins trace to private collections assembled during the 18th and 19th centuries. The first collection donated to the city of Riga belonged to Nikolaus von Himsel (1729-1764), a Baltic German physician and traveler who acquired numerous oriental objects for a Kunstkammer. Around 1866, the city purchased the painting collection of Domenico de' Robiani (1793-1889), an Italian merchant who had long resided in Riga. These two collections were merged, prompting the idea of establishing a public art museum. Due to lack of space, works were temporarily housed from 1879 to 1905 in the residence of Mayor Ludwig Wilhelm Kerkovius (1831-1904). During this period the collection expanded rapidly through donations, including 30 paintings from poet Reinhold Schilling (1819-1888), 26 paintings from Kerkovius himself, and most significantly, the collection of Friedrich Wilhelm Brederlo (1779-1862), comprising 201 paintings with approximately 70 by Dutch masters. A dedicated museum building opened in 1905. After 1945 the collection was divided, with one museum receiving Latvian and Russian art while the other took world art. From 1952 the museum expanded to include ancient Oriental, antique, and Far Eastern departments. It underwent several name changes: Latvijas PSR Tēlotājas mākslas muzejs, then in 1964 Aizrobežu mākslas muzejs, and in 1992 Ārzemju mākslas muzejs (Museum of Foreign Art). It adopted its current name in 2010. From 1920 until 2010 the museum occupied the south wing of Riga Castle, moving to its present location after reconstruction was completed in 2011.

The museum's collection encompasses more than 22,000 works of art, representing an exceptionally wide chronological and geographical range. The holdings extend from the fourth millennium BC to the 20th century, covering Ancient Egyptian art, antiquities, Western European painting and sculpture, and Asian art through the 21st century. The painting collection is particularly strong in Dutch and Flemish masters, reflecting the core of the Brederlo donation, but also includes significant French, German, and Italian works. The sculpture collection ranges from 15th-century religious woodcarvings to 19th-century marble and bronze works. The museum also maintains substantial collections of decorative arts, including porcelain from major European manufactories and objects from East Asian workshops. By the 1980s the collection had grown to approximately 17,000 artworks including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, porcelain, ceramics, and applied arts, with roughly 1,000 paintings.

Among the most significant paintings are Bartholomeus Spranger's Adam and Eve (tempera on canvas, 1593-1595), a workshop piece after Anton van Dyck's Portrait of William II, Prince of Orange-Nassau (1632), Jacob van Loo's Portrait of a Scientist (1647), and Claude Monet's Winter Landscape (Sandviken) from 1895. The Dutch and Flemish school is represented by Melchior d'Hondecoeter's Rooster Fight (17th century), Daniel Seghers and Lucas van Uden's Landscape in a Garland of Flowers (oil on wood, 17th century), and Pieter Pietersz Aertsen's The Crucifixion of Christ. Other notable works include Louis-Léopold Boilly's portrait of collector Friedrich Wilhelm Brederlo, Hubert Robert's The Augustus Temple in Nîmes (1783), and Hans Makart's The Battle of the Lapiths against the Centaurs (1878). The sculpture collection features Antonio Canova's Bust of the Goddess Hebe (marble, 1819), Auguste Rodin's The Kiss (bronze, 1886), Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's Bust of a Bacchante, and François Pompon's Bear in glazed ceramic. The decorative arts include an 18th-century Arita porcelain plate, a Cantonese ivory puzzle ball with sticks from the 20th century, a Fabergé crystal and silver bird carafe from the 19th century, a Meissen porcelain vase with snow ball decoration circa 1740, and a Sèvres bisque porcelain figure of The Reaper from 1757-1766. The museum also holds Dmitry Gutov's installation Gondola from 2012.

The museum occupies the former Riga Stock Exchange building, constructed between 1852 and 1856 on the corner of Pils iela, Šķūņu iela, and Jēkaba iela. The architect Harald Julius von Bosse (1812-1894), a Baltic German noble working in Saint Petersburg, designed the structure in the Venetian Renaissance palazzo style as a symbol of wealth and abundance. The Danish sculptor David Jensen (1816-1902), also based in Saint Petersburg, executed the terracotta façade decorations with allegorical sculptures and ornamental elements. The building was ceremonially opened on 26 May 1856 in the presence of Tsar Alexander II. After World War II, during the Soviet period, it became the House of Science and Technology Propaganda of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences, its façade repainted in pale pink and brown. On the night of 24-25 January 1980, a fire severely damaged the upper floor halls; reconstruction began in 1981 but halted in 1982, resuming only in 2008 under the project Reconstruction of the former Stock Exchange. The building was restored to its original terracotta brown color and reopened on 20 August 2011 to house the foreign art collections. The site overlooks what is now Dome Square (Doms laukums), created in 1937 after the demolition of several buildings.

The Art Museum Riga Bourse is located in Riga's Old Town at Domplatz (Dome Square), at the intersection of Pils iela, Šķūņu iela, and Jēkaba iela. The museum is owned and operated as part of Latvia's national museum system, with its website at http://lnmm.lv/lv/mmrb. Since moving to the renovated Stock Exchange building in 2011, it has served as the primary public venue for viewing foreign art collections in Latvia. Its present role continues the institution's long function as the country's foremost museum of world art, now housed in a historically significant architectural monument that has been returned to public cultural use after decades of alternative purposes and fire damage.