DÉRI MUSEUM (DÉRI MÚZEUM)

This is one of Hungary's richest and most emblematic museums. It owes its name and existence to Frigyes Déri (1852-1924), a Viennese industrialist with a passion for culture and travel, who donated his vast collection of art and ethnographic objects to the city.

The museum building on Place Déri tér is an imposing neoclassical structure with an Empire-inspired columned façade. As you enter, you are greeted by four monumental sculptures by Ferenc Medgyessy: these bronzes, depicting Hungarian folk figures, won the Grand Prix at the 1937 Paris Universal Exhibition.

The museum's collections are divided into several main sections. The oldest, created by Frigyes Déri himself, brings together numerous ethnographic objects from the Great Plain. These objects - farming tools, traditional clothing, ceramics, rustic furniture - bear witness to the rural way of life of yesteryear. They also tell of the daily lives of the inhabitants of Debrecen and the surrounding area.

One of the museum's most unexpected treasures is its Egyptian collection. Housed in a modern hall, it includes painted sarcophagi, amulets, funerary objects, divine statuettes and papyrus fragments. The museum even has human and animal mummies. These authentic, well-preserved pieces illustrate the beliefs and funeral rituals of ancient Egypt, and constitute one of the finest collections of its kind in Hungary outside Budapest.

The Déri Museum is also famous for housing three monumental masterpieces by the painter Mihály Munkácsy: Christ before Pilate, Ecce Homo and Calvary. This trilogy, painted between 1881 and 1896, depicts key moments in the Passion of Christ. Thanks to an immersive staging including lighting, sound and commentary, we enjoy a unique experience in contact with these works. Munkácsy, considered one of Hungary's greatest painters, achieved exceptional mastery of composition, emotional expression and the treatment of light.

In the gallery of ancient art, European works from the ^17th to the ^19th century, as well as several major canvases by Hungarian artists, face us. Among them, a large historical painting by Bertalan Székely evokes Miklós Zrínyi's heroic assault on the Ottomans at Szigetvár, a symbolic episode in the Hungarian struggle against the Ottoman Empire in the ^16th century.

The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions.