The museum was founded from his own oriental collection by Ferenc Hopp (1833-1919), a wealthy optician, traveller, patron of art and collector. Today the collection consists of more than 20,000 Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Tibetian and Mongolian art objects such as sculptures, paintings, ceramics, carvings, textiles and other pieces of oriental art. The former villa of Ferenc Hopp houses temporary thematic exhibitions. The permanent exhibitions, "Collecting Oriental Art in Hungary" and "The Art of Chinese Ceramics' are in the Ráth György Museum.