[1] It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev,[1] a prominent Azerbaijani scenic designer and theater artist.

[4][5] There are approximately 9,000 scientific books and monographs, catalogues, albums and other professional literature in the library of the museum.

[6] Moreover, the collection of the national treasures, the examples of statuary, fine and graphic arts and other decorative-applied arts of Western Europe (France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Flanders, Denmark, Spain), the East (Iran, Turkey, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Middle East) and Russia is available at the museum.

Hats and so-called "arakhchins" were ornamented with rosettes and medallions made from stylized petals and stars.

European art includes works of Italian (Guercino, Leandro Bassano, Francesco Solimena, Lorenzo Bartolini), French (Jules Dupré, Gaspard Dughet, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant), Dutch/Flemish (Frans Hals, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Adriaen Brouwer, Adriaen van Ostade, Justus Sustermans, Pieter Claesz), German (Johann Heinrich Roos, Friedrich August von Kaulbach) and Polish (Jan Styka) painters.

Russian art is encompassed notably by paintings of Karl Briullov, Alexey Venetsianov, Vasily Vereshchagin, Isaac Levitan, Vladimir Makovsky, Valentin Serov, Vladimir Borovikovsky, Vasily Tropinin, Konstantin Korovin and Ivan Shishkin.

The museum expositions were later exhibited in Canada (1966), Cuba (1967), Syria (1968), France (1969), former Czechoslovakia, Algeria (both 1970), Iraq (1971) etc.

This building is considered one of the first attempts in the implementation of porticoes on the main facade, loggias - on the side and other plastic means.

This collection includes works of art from antique and Middle Ages, including figures of birds from Manna, female figures from III-I centuries BC, various ancient dishes from various territories of Azerbaijan which were found during excavations, a tombstone in a shape of horse, etc.