Museum of Colonial Art

The Museum of Colonial Art (Museo de Arte Colonial) in Bogotá, Colombia, is a public institution dedicated to preserving and exhibiting art from Colombia's colonial period. Founded on August 6, 1942, the museum holds a collection of over 1,600 objects and occupies one of the oldest noble houses in the country, a building that has served as a center of education, government, and culture since the early seventeenth century. Its holdings are particularly significant for the study of criollo religious art and the cultural history of the New Kingdom of Granada.

The museum was inaugurated on August 6, 1942, during the presidency of Eduardo Santos Montejo, through the initiative of Minister of Education Germán Arciniegas. Its establishment consolidated several streams of collection formation from the first half of the twentieth century. Initial holdings included works donated by former president Eduardo Santos, acquisitions from collectors Carlos Pardo and Josefina and Pablo Argáez, and a selection of colonial art transferred from the National Museum of Colombia. These private collections had largely formed after the disentailment of ecclesiastical goods initiated by Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera around 1861, when paintings expropriated from the Church passed into private hands and subsequently to museums. The building itself was declared a National Monument in 1975. A major renovation took place between 2013 and 2017, costing approximately nine billion pesos, during which the curatorial approach was redefined to incorporate recent historiographical perspectives; the museum reopened in August 2017 with five new thematic galleries.

The museum's collections span painting, wood sculpture, furniture, jewelry, books, and colonial-era documents, with particular strength in religious art from the New Kingdom of Granada. The holdings include works from several regional schools: pieces from the Quito School by artists such as Miguel de Santiago, Caspicara, and Bernardo de Legarda; paintings from the Cuzco School in eastern Peru; Huamanga ivory medallions; religious sculptures from Mexico and Central America; and colonial paintings and popular sculptures from New Granada. The collection also encompasses European works, including oil paintings and drawings from Italy, Spain, and Flanders attributed to Correggio, José de Ribera, and the workshop of Rubens. Additional categories include porcelain and glass from Santa Fe de Bogotá and Europe, antique musical instruments, and a significant assemblage of colonial silver and gold objects comprising chalices, ciboria, crowns, scepters, censers, and other liturgical items.

The centerpiece of the collection is the most extensive existing body of work by Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos, one of the greatest painters of the New Kingdom of Granada, comprising 76 oil paintings and 106 drawings attributed to him. The Colombian collection also features works attributed to members of the Figueroa family, Narvaez, and Angelino Medoro. Among the colonial-era objects are textiles, numismatic pieces, prints, and manuscripts. The initial exhibitions organized at the museum's opening were devoted to Gregorio Vásquez, the Argáez collection, and groups of silverwork, furniture, devotional painting, and official portraits from the viceregal period.

The museum occupies the Casa de Aulas, also known as the Claustro de las Aulas, one of Colombia's oldest noble houses. Constructed in 1610 by the Jesuit Pedro Pérez (1555-1638), it formed part of the Society of Jesus's architectural complex until the Jesuit expulsion of 1767. The building first served as the Colegio Máximo of the Company of Jesus and, from the first half of the eighteenth century, as the seat of the Pontifical Javeriana University of Bogotá. After 1767, the structure assumed multiple national functions: it housed the Congress of the Republic, military barracks, the National Library, the National Museum, the School of Natural Sciences, the Natural History Museum, the National Assembly, and the Academy of History. Notable historical events connected to the site include Antonio Nariño's assumption of the presidency before the city council in 1812; the imprisonment of Francisco de Paula Santander following the 1828 conspiracy against Bolívar; the installation of the Admirable Congress in 1830 presided over by Simón Bolívar; and the first performance of the Colombian national anthem in the Capilla de Indios on December 6, 1887.

The Museum of Colonial Art is located in Bogotá, Colombia, and operates under public administration with a website at www.museocolonial.gov.co. Following its 2013-2017 renovation, the museum reopened with five permanent thematic galleries: La imagen colonial; El viaje: encuentro y transformación de dos mundos; Las ciudades: fundación y asentamientos; Colegiales y artesanos; and La Colonia: un pasado aún presente. These galleries examine the cultural formation of New Granada between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and the persistence of colonial practices and symbols in contemporary life. The museum's programming addresses themes including the circulation of images, transatlantic voyages, city foundation, educational and artisanal practices, and colonial legacies in the present.