Council chamber

The mayor and councillors met in the council chamber to make decisions about the town. Its decoration also expresses authority through images: medallions on the walls portray Hungarian rulers whose decisions affected mining towns. The eighteenth-century Baroque paintings were executed a secco, meaning on dry plaster.

In 1822, a portrait of Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary, was added to the series. He visited Nová Baňa on 26 August that year. The decoration was therefore not a collection fixed permanently at one moment. A further portrait recorded a particular visit by a representative of the state.

A fire in 2005 seriously damaged the paintings. The whole room was restored between 2009 and 2012 under the direction of sculptor Juraj Maták. The work included the decorative wall painting and took the chamber's eighteenth-century appearance as its reference. Today's interior should therefore be understood as a historic ensemble extensively restored after a fire, rather than an untouched decoration surviving intact for centuries.