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Hungary's grandest museum to be renovated

BUDAPESH, Hungary, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, one of the world's finest museums when it opened in 1906, will undergo complete renovation of its galleries.

The facelift will do away with Communist-era lighting and heating, and add an underground extension like that of the Louvre in Paris, it was announced Thursday by it new director, Laszo Baan.

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Baan, 43, an economist who has worked in Hungary's ministry of cultural heritage, said the Hungarian government will provide $50 million for the renovation work and $18 million will be raised privately for the extension work.

The underground extension will provide space for temporary exhibitions and loan exhibitions from abroad, a café and shops, said Baan, adding he hopes to re-establish the museum's international image along with the "joy" that should be experienced by both visitors and curators.

Once considered the equal of the Art History Museum in Vienna, the Budapest Museum's notable holdings include Raphael's Esterhazy Madonna, the only known sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci, fine collections of classic and Egyptian art, first rate French Impressionist paintings, some 8,000 prints including Rembrandt and Nicolas Poussin, and modern and contemporary art.

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