National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA)
Brazil's national fine-arts collection in a 1908 eclectic palace on Avenida Rio Branco.
The National Museum of Fine Arts occupies a large eclectic palace on Avenida Rio Branco, built between 1906 and 1908 to the designs of the Spanish-born architect Adolfo Morales de los Ríos for the National School of Fine Arts. Its ornate façade, with paired columns, allegorical sculpture and a grand entrance staircase, was conceived as part of the remodelling of central Rio under mayor Pereira Passos. The museum itself was created by federal law in January 1937 and opened the following year.
The collection numbers some 70,000 items and is the most important survey of Brazilian art in the country, running from colonial painting through nineteenth-century academic work to modernism. Among the best-known canvases are Pedro Américo's vast Battle of Avaí and Victor Meirelles' First Mass in Brazil, alongside works by Eliseu Visconti, Almeida Júnior and Candido Portinari. Foreign holdings, prints, photography and a research library and historical archive complete the institution.
Highlights
- Eclectic 1908 palace built for the National School of Fine Arts
- Pedro Américo's Battle of Avaí, one of Brazil's largest canvases
- Victor Meirelles' First Mass in Brazil and other academic landmarks
- Around 70,000 works, plus a library and historical archive
