After breakfast we leave to explore the Art Nouveau quarter. From the hotel it isn’t far, in fact it starts next to our hotel but the heart of it is Alberta iela a bit further away and we walk there first. And based on the visual opulence of the buildings we have chosen well, they are impressive.
Most buildings here are beautifully restored and seem to be (and of course are) from a different era. None of them as far as see were built for one rich person, all of them were multiple family homes just with some special facades.
Between all the restored buildings there is one that isn’t restored, Alberta iela 11, even non restored you can see how beautiful and special it looks.
Our goal is the Art Nouveau museum at the end of the street. One thing that we don’t notice at the entrance is that there are two museums in the building as we press the call button for the Art Nouveau museum and enter inside.
As we enter our eyes are drawn on the beautiful staircase, it is a highlight of the building and we have to climb to the top to see how it looks from there, spoiler alert, it looks quite impressive from the top too.
At the top is a museum and we enter, we know there is only one after all. It is only 2 euros which is less than we expected and should have been a warning sign. And then we get the pamphet and lo and behold it is a different museum, the Jana Rozentala and Rudolfa Blaumana museum. We don’t know anything about either of them so we have a journey of discovery ahead of us.
Rozentāls was a founder of the fine arts in Latvia, lived at the flat from 1904 until 1915 together with his wife, the Finnish singer Elli Forssell. A sub-renter at the flat, in turn, was the outstanding Latvian author Rūdolfs Blaumanis. And the apartament tells the story of the two (three) proeminent artists. Interestingly the flat has a second floor which is the artist studio and it is quite interesting to visit.
There are some good views of the buildings across the street, you can see both modern and early 20th century buildings side by side which is always interesting.
As the apartment is furnished as it was during the time the artists lived here it is interesting to see the details, we especially like the 20th turn of the century heating elements which look quite serious.
There are lots of sketches in the studio and even finished paintings and we can get some idea this way of Rozentāls style of painting which we find quite beautiful.
The biggest and most interesting of the paintings is “Princess with a monkey”. It is supposedly an allegory of the relationship between an artist and society reflecting the power of money over the artist.
The lower floor is has a few well furnished rooms and we enjoy our walk through them examining all the details and paintings.
Another room is showing the successions of wallpapers that covered the walls of the room throughout the last century. It is interesting to see the different styles and colors and we examine it in detail for some time.
For us the most interesting part of this flat would have been the plant nook. The flowers here are very healthy and they seem to grow very well in this sunny nook, we really like this spot. And then it is time to leave the museum and the Art Nouveau quarter to continue our exploration of beautiful Riga.
