This museum began with a shared passion for art in a home overlooking the Nile. Mahmoud Khalil and his wife Emiline assembled paintings, sculpture and decorative objects; the collection later passed to the state, and the house opened as a museum in 1962. Both names remain attached to that personal legacy.
European art, especially from the nineteenth century, has a prominent place alongside ceramics and sculpture. Moving through the rooms lets you follow the collectors’ taste as well as individual artists, keeping the collection’s domestic origins present throughout the visit.
