Plan your visit
The ticket office closes 30 minutes before closing time.
Ticket prices
- Adults – 6,00 €
- Concessions* – 3,00 €
Family ticket
- 1 adult and up to 4 children – 9,00 €
- 2 adults and up to 4 children – 15,00 €
Additional services
- Guided tour for a group in Lithuanian or other language (up to 14 visitors) – 20,00 € (visitor tickets not included)
- Exclusive guided tour for a group in Lithuanian or other language, including a visit to the library and studio (up to 14 visitors) – 25,00 € (visitor tickets not included)
- Admission to an educational activity for children 4 years of age and older, as well as school students – 2,00 € or 3,00 € (adults need to additionally purchase a museum visitor ticket)
Combo tickets
- Museums in Vilnius (every branch of National Museum of Lithuania that is located in Vilnius) – 30,00 €
Exposition is free of charge for the following visitors:
pre-school children; orphans and children who have lost guardianship by their parents; people with a disability and their one accompanying person; persons from 80 years of age; employees of Lithuania’s museums; members of the International Council of Museums (ICOM); residents of children care homes and socially supported children; teachers accompanying groups of schoolchildren; Vilnius Pass card holders (valid for visiting The New Arsenal, The Old Arsenal, The House of Signatories, Gediminas Castle Tower, The Bastion of the Vilnius Defence Wall, Kazys Varnelis House-Museum, House of Histories); students of Lithuanian art schools for children and youth; students of Vilnius College of Technologies and Design; students of Balys Dvarionas decennary music school; members of the Lithuanian Association of Art Historians; members of the International Association of Art Critics; members of the Lithuanian Association of Archaeologists; guides with valid guide ID; guides accompanying groups of tourists; employees of the Cultural Heritage Department at the Ministry of Culture and its territorial branches; cadets and conscripts from General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania; soldiers of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas Headquarters Battalion; members of the Lithuanian army volunteer union; employees of Lithuanian Post; journalists; Family Card holders; students of Vilnius Academy of Arts; students of the Faculty of History at Vilnius University; citizens of Ukraine; organised migrant groups; all visitors on the last Sunday of each month.
Educational activities of the National Museum of Lithuania’s expositional locations are free of charge for the following visitors:
children under 3 years of age; residents of children care homes and socially supported children; people with a disability and their one accompanying person; teachers accompanying groups of schoolchildren.
Concessions are applied upon the visitor providing valid ID that prooves right to specific concessions. This ID requirement does not apply to pre-school children and all visitors on the last Sunday of each month.
Information for disabled visitors: exhibition halls of the Kazys Varnelis House-Museum do not have wheelchair access. Video guides in Lithuanian Sign Language are available.
General visitor regulations of the National Museum of Lithuania
Individual visitors who have purchased a ticket can attend only 14 of 43 exhibition halls, including temporary exhibitions. The rest of the museum can be visited only with a tour guide. Guided tours, depending on the price, can be themed (up to 1 hour) or exclusive, during which visitors are admitted to the personal library and studio of the artist.
Guided tours are available in the Lithuanian, Russian and English languages. Guided tours must be ordered in advance by phone or e-mail ((8 5) 279 16 44, [email protected]).
The tours in the museum are only led by the museum tour guides or the tour guides from the institution with which the museum has concluded an appropriate agreement.
The museum is open to visitors during the regular opening hours. Please read relevant information regarding COVID-19 before visit: click here (link)
Exhibitions and events
Algimantas Kezys’ photography exhibition “Cityscapes”
Exhibition
2024 05 29 – 2024 12 29
Kazys Varnelis House-Museum
About us
At first glance, the house–museum of the Lithuanian émigré artist and collector Kazys Varnelis looks like a small residential building. In fact, though, it contains more than 40 exhibition spaces combining antique graphic arts, maps, Western European sculpture and painting, historic furniture and Asian artworks, as well as Varnelis’s own optical art compositions.
What will you see?
The only examples in Lithuania of Spanish artist Francisco Goya’s etchings, from the famous cycle Los Caprichos (1798); the famous 1631 Radziwill map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; impressive black-and-white masterpieces of optical art, including the work “Convex and Concave”; examples of modernist furniture.
What will you learn?
Today the visitor can independently explore fourteen of the museum’s rooms; others can be viewed with a guide, which requires advance booking. The extended tour offers the opportunity not only to become acquainted with Varnelis’s painting and collection, but also see his 10,000-book library and the artist’s unique studio space.
The Kazys Varnelis House–Museum is the first such Lithuanian museum created by a collector and also the only branch of the National Museum of Lithuania dedicated solely to art.
History of the building
Dating back as far as the 15th century, these buildings are among the oldest on Rotušė Square. They are excellent examples of Vilnius Gothic and Renaissance architecture, and contain many authentic antique details. Niches, arches, fireplaces, a Gothic era toilet—these kinds of elements help us better understand the everyday life of the Vilnius residents who once lived and work here.
The complex consists of buildings arranged over two plots: the Small Guild House and the so-called Masalskis or Merchant House.
It is known that in the 15th century, perhaps even from the late 14th century, the Small Guild House belonged to the Mamoničius family of merchants, then later to the Maksimovičius family, who in 1608 handed the building, or part of it, to dozens of the city’s merchants. In the late 17th to the early 19th centuries it was owned by the Basilian monks, then later by the Old Believer Monastery of the Holy Spirit. Over the next several centuries the building functioned as a warehouse for goods, and also contained craftsmen’s workshops, pubs and stores. It is believed that a merchants’ hotel also functioned on the second floor.
The adjacent building was erected at the turn of the 18th century and was owned by the Masalskis, Tšeciakas, and Davidovičius families, as well as the important Domanskis merchant clan. Like many Vilnius buildings, this one was also seriously damaged by the great fire of 1749. The building housed shops and a pharmacy, while the second floor contained residential apartments. This building also still contains a rare feature for Vilnius buildings – a very large open fireplace. Both buildings’ exteriors also underwent many changes – today we can count as many as ten stages of construction.
In 1993 Vilnius city council allocated the building to the Kazys Varnelis Museum. With great sensitivity to and respect for old Vilnius stonework and architecture, the Lithuanian émigré artist Kazys Varnelis (1917–2010) created a true art labyrinth here. In an exhibition that winds through more than 40 rooms, the museum invites visitors to experience a harmonious dialogue between artworks and architecture.
Contacts
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