The edifice of the NGFA was built between 1882 and 1884 during the rule of knyaz Alexander Battenberg to the designs of Austrian architect Friedrich Schwanberg[2] and reconstructed after it suffered significant damage during the bombing of Sofia in World War II.

The collection includes works with traditional motives, paintings from the Mughal era and the Delhi Sultanate and the art schools of Rajasthan and Pahara.

The collection offers an insight into the development of ukiyo-e from monochrome to polychrome prints, as well as the first contacts of Japanese and European art.

Hall Six exhibits Buddhist art from the region of Southeast Asia, primarily from the Pagan Kingdom and other areas of what is today Myanmar.

Sculptures of the Buddha in the different positions and from various materials, as well as manuscripts and other fine and applied arts, date as early as the 11th century AD.

Other Italian artists include Pietro Perugino, Antonio da Correggio, Rosso Fiorentino, Giovanni Battista Moroni and Alessandro Magnasco.

Hall Eight encompasses French, Flemish and other art from the 18th to the first half of the 19th century, most notably works by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Francisco Goya and Jan Frans van Bredael.

Hall Nine exhibits painting and sculpture from the second half of the 19th and the 20th century by Auguste Rodin, Ivan Meštrović, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí, among others.