Palazzo Attems Petzenstein, seat of the Pinacoteca of the Provincial Museums of Gorizia, was completed in its rococo guise in 1750 on commission from Count Sigismondo d'Attems Petzenstein. The two rooms frescoed by the Cividalese Francesco Chiarottini (1748-1796) should instead date back to 1780, among which the inventions of archaeological subjects painted in the Room of Ovid's Metamorphoses stand out, so called for the subject of the stuccos that decorate the ceiling. The palace also houses an Italian garden which houses the lapidarium and in the center the Fountain of Hercules built after 1769 to a design by Nicolò Pacassi (1716-1790), court architect of Maria Theresa of Habsburg.
The building has been home to the Provincial Museums of Gorizia since 1900 and today houses spaces dedicated to temporary exhibitions and the Pinacoteca. The rooms welcome almost one hundred pieces including paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures that unfold in a chronological itinerary from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The hall of honour, over which the Gods of Olympus by Antonio Paroli reign, also houses the monumental Pala Attems (1758) by Giambettino Cignaroli (1706-1770) from Verona, also commissioned by Count Sigismondo. The collection of works by Giuseppe Tominz (1790-1866), the most famous and celebrated portraitist from Gorizia, is important, of which the museums preserve the Self-Portrait with his brother Francesco (1818 ca.), a true manifesto of Tominzian poetics. The Pinacoteca also boasts a permanent collection by Josef Maria Auchentaller (1865-1949), versatile artist and designer, representative of the Viennese Secession and close associate of Klimt, who in the early twentieth century left Vienna for Grado, indulging in the entrepreneurial ambitions of his wife Emma Scheid. The signatures of the artists of the first half of the twentieth century are also of significant interest: by Italico Brass, Gino de Finetti and Edoardo Del Neri, by Luigi Spazzapan, Veno Pilon and Ivan Čargo, by the futurists Soforonio Pocarini, Tullio Crali, Raoul Cenisi and Rudolf Saxida, by Avgust Cernigoj, by Vittorio Bolaffio, by Giannino Marchig, by the sculptors Marcello Mascherini, Ferruccio Patuna, Mario Sartori, Ugo Carrà and France Gorše, by Giorgio Carmelich and Arturo Nathan up to Anton Zoran Music, an artist from Gorizia known worldwide for his Dalmatian horses and the cycle We are not the last.

The Art Gallery is managed by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region through ERPAC - the Regional Body for Cultural Heritage.