Museu Nacional de Belas Artes

National Museum of Fine Arts

Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
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Established	1937
Location	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Coordinates	22°54′31.673″S 43°10′32.632″W / 22.90879806°S 43.17573111°W / -22.90879806; -43.17573111
Visitors	135.726 (2012)[1]
Director	Mônica Xexéo
Website	gov.br/museus/pt-br/museus-ibram/mnba

The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA;

The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes is one of the most important cultural institutions of the country, as well as the most important museum of Brazilian art, particularly rich in 19th-century paintings and sculptures. The collection includes more than 20,000 pieces, among paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, of Brazilian and international artists, ranging from High Middle Ages to contemporary art. It also includes smaller assemblages of decorative arts, folk and African art. The museum library has a collection of about 19,000 titles. The building was listed as Brazilian national heritage in 1973.^[2][3]

Although the museum was officially established on 13 January 1937 and inaugurated on 19 August 1938, its history is much older, ranging back to the transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil in 1808. Fleeing the invasion of

The construction was finished in 1908. This same year, the school and its art collection started being transferred to the new headquarters. The painting collection was installed on the third floor. The collection of plaster copies of ancient statues, used in art classes, was installed on the second floor, with a museographic project specially developed for them. The fourth floor was conceived to house the administrative offices and studios for practical classes. In 1931, the school was incorporated by the University of Rio de Janeiro.^{[citation needed]}

When the museum was created in 1937 by the education minister

In the 1980s some serious structural problems were detected in the building. Since they represented a major threat to the preservation of the collection, the museum passed through a series of reforms, with the aim of modernizing the exhibition areas and reformulating the museographic project and, at the same time, preserving the building original style and decoration. In the mid-1990s, the Fundação Nacional de Artes was transferred to another location and the museum was finally able to occupy the whole building.[2] Currently, the museum counts with 6,733.84 square meters of exhibition area and a deposit of 1,797.32 square meters. In addition to the exhibition areas and technical/administrative rooms, the museum possesses laboratories of conservation and restoration and studios for plaster molding.^{[citation needed]}

The museum library specializes in 19th- and 20th-century art. Besides the collection of about 19,000 titles, it comprises more than 12,000 audiovisual items, iconographic and textual documents,

Since its beginning in 1808, the collection of works of art has been enormously expanded and now has around 20,000 items. The collections include painting, sculpture, drawing as well as decorative arts, furniture, folk art and African art.

The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes is the heir of the collections gathered since the early 19th century by the Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts and its successors (the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and the National School of Fine Arts), i.e., the national institution responsible for the register of Brazilian pictorial output. Therefore, it is widely accepted that no other collection, public or private, is able to present such a wide and comprehensive panorama of

The

The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes has one of the most important collections of engravings in the country, an assemblage of works which is able to provide a remarkable panorama of the historical development of print technique in Brazil. The collection comprises works by August Off, Emil Bauch, Carlos Oswald, Oswaldo Goeldi, Lívio Abramo, Lasar Segall, Maria Bonomi, Fayga Ostrower, Carlos Scliar, Poty Lazzarotto, Edith Behring, Anna Letycia Quadros, Dionísio del Santo, Anna Bella Geiger, Rubens Gerchman. In addition to the prints, the collection includes a group of 126 woodblocks by Goeldi, 62 copper plates by Carlos Oswald, and 27 plates by Djanira, etc. The collection of prints is permanently available to consult by researchers, artists and general public in the "Gabinete de Gravuras" (prints cabinet) and is presented in temporary exhibitions at the Carlos Oswald Room.

The section of Brazilian drawings of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes contains about 4,000 works, being one of the largest collections of the institution. It includes works on pencil, pen, ink, crayon, watercolor, chalk, and other techniques, either produced as sketches or as independent artworks. The main core is composed by the large assemblages of works by

The section of international paintings of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes represents the initial core of the museum holdings. It takes its rise from the collection of King John VI of Portugal, which was transferred to Brazil in 1808, together with the Portuguese Court. Later, the collection was expanded with the paintings brought by Joaquim Lebreton, who came to Brazil with the mission of organising the country's first art academy. Subsequent acquisitions and donations greatly enlarged the international art collection, which is today one of the most representative among South American museums. Major part of the collection is composed by

The nucleus of French paintings is mainly composed by 18th and 19th century artworks. It comprises, aside from the painters of the French Artistic Mission, names such as Jacques Courtois, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, François Bonvin, Théodule Ribot, Jules Breton, Jean-Paul Laurens, Constant Troyon, Jean-Jacques Henner, Jules Dupré, Gustave Doré, Henri Harpignies, Alfred Sisley, Armand Guillaumin, Edmond Aman-Jean and Henri Martin. Among the highlights of the collections is the group of 20 paintings by Eugène Boudin, one of the largest such ensembles outside France.

The collection of Dutch, Flemish and German paintings is mainly composed by works ranging from 15th to 17th century. It includes an important group of eight Brazilian landscapes by Dutch artist Frans Post, the first landscapist of the New World. The collection also includes paintings by Joos van Cleve, Hans von Kulmbach, Jan Dirksz Both, Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Abraham Brueghel, David Teniers the Younger, Daniel Seghers, Gerard ter Borch, David Beck, Jan Steen.

Other European artists presented in the collection include

The museum holds a small collection of international sculpture, most part of which dating of the 19th century. Unlike the collection of Brazilian sculpture, this group of works were not gathered through systematic acquisitions, but rather by sporadic donations and legacies. Among them, the

The museum owns approximately 2,000 examples of international prints. Though not extensive in size, the collection is considerably diversified and eclectic, offering a brief panorama of the history of engraving in distinct civilizations. The group of Flemish, Dutch and German prints is of particular importance. Authors in the collection include

The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes has a small but highly distinguished collection of international drawings. Most part of the pieces are of French origin, including 247 drawings by Grandjean de Montigny and other works by François Gérard, Honoré Daumier, Rosa Bonheur, Édouard Detaille, Henri-Edmond Cross and Jean-Louis Forain, etc. Other European schools well represented in the collection include Italy (Bartolomeo Cesi, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Corrado Giaquinto, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Pompeo Batoni), Portugal (Francisco de Holanda, Domingos Sequeira, Vieira Portuense, José Malhoa), Netherlands and Germany (Paulus Potter, Johann Moritz Rugendas), among others.

The museum collection of folk art is composed by 442 works, attesting several ethnological aspects of the regional societies of Brazil. The collection includes works of both functional and artistic nature and its value lies in its capacity of revealing the life conditions, traditions, religiosity, recreation, aesthetic ideals, creativity and the human-nature relationship of the peoples of Brazil, as well as the regional differences concerning these issues. Popular piety and other aspects of Religion in Brazil are well documented in the collection, which includes many examples of ex-votos, clay and wood statuary, etc. Manuel Eudócio, Zé Caboclo and Mestre Cândido are some of the artisans represented in the collection.

The museum collection of

• São Paulo Museum of Art
• Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
• Rio Grande do Sul Museum of Art