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Ninety seconds on the National Art Museum of Montenegro
Montenegrin and Yugoslav art, part of the icon collection and, in the Blue Chapel, the icon of Our Lady of Philermos. The museum fills Government House, and memorial rooms honour four central names of Montenegrin art: Milo Milunović, Petar Lubarda, Branko Filipović Filo and Miodrag Đurić Dado.
As of 2026, daily from 9am to 5pm between 15 April and 15 November, then weekdays only from 9am to 3pm. Admission stops 30 minutes before closing. The Dado Đurić gallery runs Tuesday to Saturday on its own calendar: 9am to 5pm in the main season, 10am to 4pm from 16 November to 31 December, and closed from 1 January to 14 April.
Yes. The Art Museum is one of the units on the National Museum's collective ticket, which also covers Njegoš's mausoleum up on Lovćen. In winter the same ticket stretches less far, because the mausoleum closes from mid-November to mid-April and the town museums keep weekday hours only.
One icon is the reason to give this museum an hour: a small Byzantine Virgin that belonged to the Knights Hospitaller, the crusading order that once ruled Rhodes, and is now kept in the museum's Blue Chapel.
The icon of Our Lady of Philermos is a Byzantine painting in tempera on wood, and it measures 44 by 36 centimetres. That is small enough that you look at it from close range rather than across a room.
Look at the face. Only the Virgin's head is painted, in three-quarter profile and tilted towards her left shoulder, and nothing more of her is shown.
The Knights Hospitaller took the icon on Rhodes in the early 14th century. Its presence in this museum's vault was made public only in 1993.
The rest of your visit belongs to the paintings. The museum keeps separate collections of Montenegrin art, Yugoslav art and icons, with important Serbian and Montenegrin painting of the 19th and 20th centuries. Memorial rooms are given to some of the leading figures of Montenegrin art.
Go to the Blue Chapel first, before the painting rooms; it is part of the Art Museum and on the same ticket. The icon sits behind glass under deliberately low lighting, so give your eyes a minute to adjust before you look for the tilt of the Virgin's head.
Then work through the painting collections and the memorial rooms at your own pace. The rooms are not large, and the visit is a short one.
When you come out, the other collections of the National Museum are close by in the centre of town, one of them across the street from the Biljarda. If you make a morning of the museums and add the other collections, allow about two hours for all three.
You do not need a guide: the National Museum's collections can be visited on your own, with information panels in English. If you plan to see more than this museum, ask for the collective ticket, which covers every National Museum unit and Njegoš's mausoleum on Lovćen. In winter it buys you less, because the mausoleum closes from the middle of November to the middle of April.
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