Other much-anticipated exhibitions feature ten of the first Chinese emperor's terracotta soldiers running between Nov 27 and May 2026, and Georg Baselitz's graphics will be shown between Dec 11 and March 15.

Meanwhile, Baan told journalists that the museum wants Hungary to call for a review of the European Union's directive on the purchase of works of art.
 

Out of thousands of purchases made between 2019 and 2024, the Hungarian Audit Office found seven purchases, from a public procurement point of view, required attention from the Public Procurement Arbitration Committee, he said.

"The museum does not contest that it evaded public procurement procedures in those cases, but argues that the EU directive, which was incorporated in Hungarian law as a mandatory element, is absurd," Baan said.

The 2024 directive ruled that artworks worth more than 220,000 euros should be sold in a public procurement procedure, Baan said. "The international museum community does not adhere to that, because the antiquities market operates in an opposite way to a public procurement procedure: when selling a specific artwork, it is the buyers rather than the sellers who compete."

Complying with the EU directive would result in "a slow bureaucratic procedure imitating nonexistent competition," he said.

He said European museums habitually disregarded the directive but "they are not punished because the authorities also find it illogical and ignore it."

In the past five years, the museum has bought nearly 1,000 artworks and received 1,800 as donations, totalling at 4.5 billion forints (EUR 11.5m), he said. Of that, the Audit Office raised objections in seven cases. "We paid some 1.5-2 billion for those seven artworks... The review is not complete yet, but we expect we will be ordered to pay a fine," he added.

MTI Stock Photo - for illustrative purposes only
 

Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881. While MTI articles are usually factual, some may contain political bias, and readers should be aware that such content does not reflect the position of XpatLoop, which is neutral and independent.

Since the goal of XpatLoop is to keep readers well briefed, right across the spectrum of opinions, MTI items are shared to ensure readers are aware of all narratives within the local media.

XpatLoop believes in empowering readers to form their own views through complete and comprehensive coverage. To facilitate this XpatLoop has a balanced range of news partners, as you can see when you surf around XpatLoop.com

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