National Museum of Art
Colonial, republican and modern Bolivian art in an eighteenth-century palace beside Plaza Murillo.
The museum occupies a baroque mansion of about 1775 built for the magistrate Francisco Tadeo Diez de Medina, later known as the palace of the Counts of Arana. Pink Viacha stone frames the doorway and the three-storey courtyard, whose carved arcades and central fountain are among the best mestizo baroque work in La Paz. The house was restored by the state in the 1950s and opened as the national art museum in 1960, a few steps from Plaza Murillo in the historic centre.
Galleries are arranged chronologically. The colonial floors hold painting of the Cusco and Potosí schools, including works attributed to Melchor Pérez de Holguín, together with silver, sculpture and furniture from the viceregal period. Upper rooms follow nineteenth-century portraiture and the indigenist generation of the twentieth century, with Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas, Arturo Borda and Marina Núñez del Prado well represented. A contemporary wing and a small archaeological display of Andean ceramics and textiles complete the circuit, alongside temporary exhibitions.
Highlights
- Mestizo baroque courtyard in pink Viacha stone, about 1775
- Colonial painting of the Cusco and Potosí schools
- Indigenist works by Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas and Arturo Borda
- Andean ceramics and textiles in the archaeological display
