Imperial Museum (Museu Imperial), Petrópolis
Pedro II's neoclassical summer palace in Petrópolis, now a museum of imperial Brazil.
The museum occupies the neoclassical summer palace of Emperor Pedro II in the mountain town of Petrópolis, built between 1845 and 1862. Julius Friedrich Koeler drew up the first scheme, Cristoforo Bonini added the granite portico, and Joaquim Cândido Guillobel and José Maria Jacinto Rebelo saw the work through, with interiors by Manuel de Araújo Porto Alegre. The palace sits in formal gardens at the centre of the town, which grew up around the imperial retreat from the 1840s.
Getúlio Vargas created the museum by decree in March 1940 and it opened to the public on 16 March 1943, after three years spent tracing dispersed imperial possessions. Its holdings now run to some 300,000 museum objects, documents and books, among them the crowns of Pedro I and Pedro II, imperial regalia, Sèvres porcelain, period furniture and an archive of more than 250,000 documents. Visitors move through the restored state rooms and private apartments on the palace's two main floors.
Highlights
- Imperial crowns of Pedro I and Pedro II, with regalia and jewels
- Restored state rooms and private apartments of the imperial family
- Archive of over 250,000 documents and a library of some 50,000 volumes
- Formal gardens, fountain and vehicle pavilion in the palace grounds
![[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]title QS:P1476,en:"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"label QS:Len,"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/500px-Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
