Museum of Applied Art, Vilnius

I parked my car on small (UNLIMITED TIME and FREE) parking lot located by the Museum of Applied Art (Taikomosios Dailes Muziejus) so the museum was my first target in Vilnius.

THE BUILDING
The Museum was housed in bright white building which was the eastern block of the Old Arsenal - one of the buildings of the Lower Castle at the foot of Gediminas Hill. The original Renaissance edifice was built in the beginning of 17th c. and severely damaged first during war with Russia in the middle of 17th century then by fire during WWII. It was reconstructed and housed the museum since 1987. More: click here.

HOURS
Mon: closed
Tue - Sat: 11.00 am - 6.00 pm
Sun and National Holiday Eve: 11.00 am - 4.00 pm

ADMISSION FEE
As I remember well it was 8 Lt for adults and 4 Lt for children.

TEMPORARY EXPOSITION
There was the exposition "The Life of Saint Casimir" when I was there (till 31 Dec 2004) which was not very interesting for me maybe except old (18-19 c.) stone statues of Saint Casimir of which younger ones were painted.

The Museum of Applied Art (Taikomosios Dailes Muziejus) was not very interesting for me. There were quite many documents, books, papers etc. in Lithuanian language which I couldn't understand. But I liked characteristic Lithuanian wooden, thin, tall religious statues displayed there.

At the moment this museum is interesting because of temporary exibition "Christianity in Lithuanian Art".
I visited it and I recommend it. Really good. It exibits Vilnius Cathedral treasure, paintings, iconas, applied and folk arts.
The exibition will be closed in October 2003, so if you are in Vilnius now, go directly to the museum.

This museum is in quite old part of Vilnius Lower castle. It is a part of Lithuanian National Art museum and expositions are always associated with art things. For example at the moment there are exhibition of various elements from Rulers Palace (which is rebuilding near Cathedral). A year ago there was an exhibition of church relict (lot of golden things, old flags and more).

It is useful to go to see this kind of museum if you are interested in Lithuanian art of past.

My Lonely Planet guidebook said that this museum housed religious jewels, found in the walls of the Cathedral, worth 11 million euros but they must not have been on current display so I was a bit disappointed in my visit here.

We were practically the only visitors the day we went, one of the museum workers more or less followed us through the museum to make sure we behaved ourselves.

The museum was mostly religious art.