Take the icing-sugar-white sweeping staircase to explore this fascinating yet undervisited 15th-to-20th-century art collection. Highlights include room 8, with Guido Reni's Risen Christ, and the sinister Judith & Holophernes by Valentin de Boulogne, as well as rooms 12 and 13, which display an excellent collection of works by Italian Mattia Preti, who was a knight of St John and responsible for the baroque makeover of St John's Co-Cathedral.
Look out for his dramatic Martyrdom of St Catherine and St John the Baptist dressed in the habit of the Knights of St John. Downstairs, room 14 contains portraits of several Grand Masters by the 18th-century French artist Antoine de Favray. Room 18 has scenes of Malta by 19th-century British artists, including lovely paintings of Gozo by poet Edward Lear, and a small Turner watercolour depicting a Grand Harbour scene (1830) – the museum's pride and joy. Interestingly, Turner never visited Malta; the work is based on scenes painted by another artist.
