Tulcea Art Museum

About

The Tulcea Art Museum (Romanian: Muzeul de Artă din Tulcea) is an art museum located at 2 Grigore Antipa Street, Tulcea, Romania. The building that houses the museum was erected between 1863 and 1865, under the Ottoman Empire, and was originally an administrative center, the palace of the Tulcea sanjak's pasha, headquarters of the mutasarrıfate and its nine kaza administrators. In 1860, Tulcea had become the capital of a sanjak including Northern Dobruja (minus the Danube Delta) and part of Southern Dobruja; the previous capital was at Babadag.

It was during this period that the European Commission of the Danube was established and foreign consulates began to appear in Tulcea. The palace was partially built, together with the Azizyie Mosque, with funds given by Dobrujan Circassian raiders to the Ottoman authorities. This group had settled in Northern Dobruja in 1864 following the Circassian genocide and was expelled after the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.

Following this war and Romania's absorption of Northern Dobruja, the building retained its administrative function until 1970, hosting the prefecture, courthouse, prosecutor's office and, between 1950 and 1970...