The furniture collection, encompassing over 1,500 items from Gothic to contemporary design, is one among the Museum's most significant collections. It is therefore the very essence of the new permanent exhibition (1995). The items, which are to a large extent of foreign origin, were collected mostly locally: They were used in Croatia's nobility and bourgeois mansions over the past centuries.

There are only a few examples of the Gothic style, but, as of Renaissance, we may truly follow the typological development of furniture.

As regards the rich and high quality Baroque production, we should single out a set of study cabinets - a specific 17th c. furniture type. The most outstanding furniture pieces from the rococo period appearing in the collection were manufactured in Venice and France.

As regards the Classicist period, there is a relatively large number of exhibits reflecting the actual state of production in Croatia at the time, which means that locally manufactured pieces prevail in this particular case.

Apart from more modest local style variants, we could single out the striking Empire furniture from the Opeka manor-house. The Biedermeier furniture is the most numerous because it was for the first time in history that the local cabinet-makers were dominating the scene.

In the second half of the 19th c., there occurred a simultaneous overlapping of various historic styles, which is illustrated by several suites for living rooms, bedrooms, as well as by some individual examples manufactured either manually or industrially. At the time, the School of Crafts was already operative in Zagreb.

Both Secession variants: The floral and the constructive are represented by high quality furniture made after designs by famous both foreign (H. van de Velde, J. Hoffman, J. M. Olbrich) and local (V. Kovacic, M. Pilar, I. Fischer) architects.

The period between the two World Wars as a complex of various style tendencies brought together under the term of "Art Deco" is represented by only a rather small number of exhibits not fully reflecting the said period's production, which is why we are still searching for some higher quality items.