The Mimara is the city's biggest art museum, with around 3,750 works donated to the people of Zagreb by Ante Topić Mimara, a charismatic and controversial 20th-century collector whose own life story (war hero, art restorer, accused art thief, mystery) is at least as interesting as the contents of his gift. The building, a former neo-Renaissance high school, suits the collection: galleries of European old masters, Persian carpets, Chinese porcelain, Roman glass, Egyptian antiquities, and 19th-century French painting.
Some of the more famous attributions — including paintings claimed to be Raphael, Velázquez, and Veronese — are disputed by scholars. None of that matters much when you are wandering the galleries; there is plenty of unambiguously fine work, and the breadth of the collection is its real pleasure. Closed Mondays.