The newly restored Vincenzo Bonello art library at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta is now open.

The library is a valuable source of reference material for researchers and curators as it houses important and rare archives and books.

The three-year restoration project was entirely funded by the HSBC Cares for Malta’s Heritage Fund.

HSBC is the official patron of the National Museum of Fine Arts, run by Heritage Malta. The restoration project consisted of the construction of a new library - a two-tier structure with a split level housing the Museum’s archives.

The lower part houses the library catalogued on the Online Public Access Catalog. The library also includes a collection of exhibition leaflets and brochures, journals and inventory cards.

Over the past four years, the HSBC Cares for Malta’s Heritage Fund contributed around €100,000 to the National Museum of Fine Arts for ongoing refurbishment projects, including the development of the lower galleries and the setting up of the library.

The bank’s close relationship with the museum dates back to 2003 when the bank loaned the museum, on a permanent basis, the Malta Turner Watercolour, a painting of the Grand Harbour which is the highlight of the museum’s 19th century collection and the only Maltese landscape known by renowned British watercolourist J.M.W. Turner.

As a group, HSBC supports the economies and societies in which it operates worldwide through donations of time and money. It also partners with reputable organisations that make a difference in their respective fields and remains involved in the decisions about how the money is spent.