Museo de América

Façade of the museum
Established	1941
Location	Madrid, Spain
Type	Artistic, archaeological and ethnographic
Owner	General State Administration
Website	museodeamerica.mcu.es
Spanish Cultural Heritage
Official name	Museo de América
Type	Non-movable
Criteria	Monument
Designated	1962
Reference no.	RI-51-0001378

The Museo de América (English: Museum of America) is a Spanish national museum of arts, archaeology and ethnography in Madrid. Its collections cover the whole of the Americas and range from the Paleolithic period to the present day.

It is owned by the Spanish State and its initial pieces came from the former collection of American archaeological and ethnographic artifacts from the National Archaeological Museum, Madrid, also exhibiting a number of unrelated donations, deposits and purchases. ^[1]

History

The institution was founded by a decree of 19 April 1941 and opened in 1944 inside the building housing the National Archaeological Museum. ^[2] After all the initial holdings were moved to a newly built premises in the Ciudad Universitaria, the building was inaugurated on 12 October 1965. ^[3] After a series of renovations of the building, which was previously shared with a number of unrelated institutions, the museum was reopened on 12 October 1994, this time exclusively occupying the entire building. ^[4] As part of preparation for the re-opening, a collecting programme was established, with artifacts from Spain's first Caribbean settlement on Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Domincan Republic) found by anthropologist Soraya Aracena. ^[5]

Collection

The permanent exhibit is divided into five major thematic areas:

• An awareness of the Americas
• The reality of the Americas
• Society
• Religion
• Communication

• 
  Ceramic vessel representing a crustacean. Moche culture artwork from Peru.
• 
  Bronze helmet of a 16th-century Spanish soldier.
• 
  Chimú vessel showing a sexual act between men.
• 
  Helmet and collar made by the Tlingit people (late 18th century). ^[6]
• 
  Statuette of a Quimbaya cacique [ es] (200–1000 AD) ^[7]
• 
  View of Seville, attributed to Alonso Sánchez Coello (late 16th century) ^[8]
• 
  Maya Stele of Madrid [ es] (600–900 AD) ^[9]
• 
  Nazca pot (1–600 AD) ^[10]
• 
  Aztec Codex Tudela
• 
  Luis de Mena, Casta Painting with the Virgin of Guadalupe, 1750
• 
  Los mulatos de Esmeraldas, de Andrés Sánchez Gallque ( escuela quiteña), 1599 (depósito del Museo del Prado).
• 
  Conquista de México. Recibimiento de Moctezuma, enconchado de Juan y Miguel González, escuela novohispana, 1698 (depósito del Prado).
• 
  Escena de mestizaje ( pintura de castas): De chino cambujo e india, loba. Miguel Cabrera, escuela novohispana, 1763.
• 
  Yapanga de Quito con el traje que usa esta clase de mujeres que tratan de agradar. Lienzo de Vicente Albán de 1783, escuela quiteña.

See also

• Museo Nacional de Antropología (Madrid), also featuring American pieces

References

Citations

Bibliography

• García Sáiz, Mª Concepción; Jiménez Villalba, Félix (2009). "Museo de América, mucho más que un museo" (PDF). Artigrama. 24 (24). Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza: 83–118. doi: 10.26754/ojs_artigrama/artigrama.2009247698. ISSN  0213-1498. S2CID  257308144.
• Krizmanics, Georg T. A. (2018). "El Museo de América de Madrid: ¿un instrumento para la política exterior española?". A Contracorriente. 15 (2): 39–61.

External links

Media related to Museo de América (Madrid) at Wikimedia Commons

• Northwest Coast art in the Museo de América
• Official website

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