Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor and his wife Caroline Augusta of Bavaria were hosted in the palace during their visit in Kolozsvár, between 18 and 27 August 1817.

The facade is decorated with statues of Mars, Minerva, Apollo, Diana, Hercules, Perseus, and the coat of arms of the Bánffy family with gryphons, without crown.

The museum also includes works by noted Hungarian artists József Koszta, Károly Lotz, László Mednyánszky, Mihály Munkácsy, Béla Nagy Abodi and István Réti.

The international collection features paintings of major European artists like Luca Giordano, Carlo Dolci, Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin, Félix Ziem, Ivan Aivazovsky, Herri met de Bles, and Franz Defregger, as well as sculptures of Claude Michel, Antoine-Louis Barye and Ernst Barlach.

Among those, the museum hosts the works of Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Honoré Daumier, Théodore Géricault, Edgar Degas and Käthe Kollwitz.