Firma y Odilo Estévez Municipal Decorative Art Museum

The Firma y Odilo Estévez Municipal Decorative Art Museum is a house museum in Rosario, Argentina, that preserves the former residence and art collections of the Estévez family. Located in the historical core of the city facing Plaza 25 de Mayo, the museum was inaugurated on 8 July 1968 after Firma Mayor de Estévez bequeathed her mansion and its contents to the Municipality of Rosario in memory of her husband Odilo Estévez. It operates under the Culture and Education Secretariat of the Municipality of Rosario and was declared a National Historic Monument in 2011.

The museum's origins trace to the collecting activities of Odilo Estévez Yáñez and his wife Firma Mayor de Estévez. Odilo, born 4 March 1870 in Freas de Eiras, Orense, Spain, immigrated to Argentina at age fourteen and later founded the Yerbatera Paraguaya, which evolved into the firm Estévez y Cía. He served as a city councilor in 1911 for the Liga del Sur and as vice president of the Municipal Commission of Fine Arts. The couple began acquiring artworks in 1914, and in 1921 they purchased the house at Santa Fe 748 from Melitón de Ibarlucea. The building, originally erected between 1870 and 1888, was reconstructed in the nineteenth century and its grounds were restored in 1924 to accommodate the growing collection. Odilo died in August 1944; Firma passed away on 8 March 1964, leaving the house and collection to the city in her will. The municipal government accepted the donation in 1966 and officially inaugurated the museum on 8 July 1968. The building was designated a National Historic Monument in 2011. In 2020, restoration work on drainage pipes uncovered historical remains including a cistern and two sewers, leading to the installation of a glass panel in the dining room's Slavonian oak floor to display the archaeological find, potentially linked to Rosario's earliest settlers. The museum reopened to the public on 30 May 2023.

The museum's permanent exhibition displays artworks and decorative objects gathered by the Estévez family over nearly three decades. The holdings encompass Spanish furniture from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries alongside copies of eighteenth-century French furniture; European paintings; sculptures; and works in ivory, glass, porcelain, jade, and silver of European, pre-Columbian, and Asian origin. The collection also includes tapestries, carpets, and fans. The pieces are distributed throughout the Central Hall, the French and Spanish Rooms, the dining room, bedroom, boudoir, parlour, Spanish courtyard, Lodge, and an exhibition hall with a separate entrance on San Lorenzo Street.

The painting collection features works by Francisco de Goya (Portrait of María Teresa Ruiz Apodaca de Sesma), Jacques-Louis David (Portrait of a Gentleman), Antoine Auguste Ernest Hébert (Maternity), Juan Pablo Salinas (The Cardinal's Dinner), François Gérard (Belisarius), and Melchior de Hondecoeter (Poultry), plus canvases attributed to François Boucher (Pastoral) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (The Assumption of Saint Catherine). Sculptures include pieces by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (Spring), Francisco Asorey (Madrecita), Peter Tereszczuk, and Adolfo Wildt. The decorative arts comprise Chinese and French glass, ceramics, and porcelain from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, Qing dynasty vases, an eighteenth-century Peruvian silver coffer, a green jade fish-shaped vessel from the Qing dynasty, an eighteenth-century French fan, and a carpet commissioned by Odilo Estévez from the Royal Tapestry Factory of Madrid. The central skylight stained glass was executed by the Catalan Salvador Buxadera in the 1920s. The museum also holds porcelain works donated by heirs of the Rosario sculptor Pedro Cresta.

The museum occupies a house at Santa Fe 748 in the heart of historic Rosario, directly facing Plaza 25 de Mayo at the origin point of the old village. It stands near the Palacio de los Leones (municipal town hall) and the Cathedral. The building was constructed between 1870 and 1888 and was reconstructed during the nineteenth century before the Estévez family acquired it in 1921. The grounds were restored in 1924 to accommodate the art collection. In 2020, restoration work revealed archaeological remains beneath the dining room floor, including a cistern and sewers, which are now visible through a glass panel installed in the Slavonian oak flooring.

The Firma y Odilo Estévez Municipal Decorative Art Museum is located in central Rosario, Argentina, facing Plaza 25 de Mayo at Santa Fe 748. It is owned and administered by the Municipality of Rosario through its Culture and Education Secretariat. The museum reopened to the public on 30 May 2023 following restoration work. Its official website is http://www.museoestevez.gob.ar/.