In the 118 years since the first painting was inventoried in the documentation of the Museum Society in Maribor, the number of paintings in the collection of the Maribor Regional Museum has grown considerably. From the point of view of art history, we can study their artistic power and from the point of view of cultural history, the paintings replace words that did not make it onto paper. They speak of known and unknown painters, of known and unknown subjects who, by commissioning a painting, expressed their social position and, at the moment they donated the piece to the museum, their value system.

They offer glimpses into historic living rooms, dining tables, the world of fashion and hierarchy, beliefs and perceptions of spiritual life and, last but not least, nationality. It is the latter aspects that are most reflected in the character of the paintings collected by all three predecessors of the Maribor Regional Museum. The Diocesan Museum contributed paintings with sacral themes for future generations,. The Museum Society preserved the memory of important Maribor citizens, craftsmen and industrialists of predominantly German origin with paintings and the Historical Society for Slovenian Styria collected material that bears witness to the Slovenian population.

Among the works collected in the Slovenian countryside, paintings on glass and paintings with sacral themes predominate. Around 1924/1925, the "Grohar Club" donated a piece by the Slovenian painter Ivan Grohar, Kapelica, to the Historical Society for Slovenian Styria. After the Second World War, the museum director Franjo Baš introduced a new, common inventory book for all collected museum objects. And an object was given the inventory number 1 once again.