Art Museum of Georgia (Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts)

The Art Museum of Georgia, also called the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts, occupies a nineteenth-century building at 1 Lado Gudiashvili Street beside Pushkin Park in central Tbilisi. The building was originally a Georgian Orthodox seminary and the museum, part of the Georgian National Museum, holds the country's largest collection of Georgian art. Its best-known holding is the Treasury, a set of small, secure rooms displaying medieval religious metalwork, including gilded icons, enamel cloisonne pieces, crosses and manuscripts covers dating from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries. Standout items include the Khakhuli triptych and enamel works from Georgian monasteries. Elsewhere, galleries show painted icons, frescoes copied or removed from churches, and carved stone fragments, followed by sections for later Georgian painting and the work of twentieth-century artists, including Niko Pirosmani and Lado Gudiashvili, whose bold primitive and modernist styles are closely linked to Tbilisi's cultural identity. Visitors should expect a visit of about 90 minutes to two hours, with extra time if reading the labels in the Treasury. The museum's rooms are small and the treasury galleries fill quickly, so weekday mornings are better. Crowds peak when tour groups arrive in late morning, and the quietest times are the first hour after opening and late afternoon. The entrance is beside Pushkin Park, a short walk from Freedom Square and Rustaveli metro station, and it combines naturally with the Georgian National Museum on Rustaveli Avenue. The museum is closed on Mondays. Labels are in Georgian and English, and an audio guide or guided tour can be arranged at the ticket desk. Visitors interested in Georgian Orthodox art and the history of the country's medieval kingdoms will find it more rewarding than a quick walk-through, and the collection offers useful context before visiting monasteries and churches outside the capital.