Museum of Colonial Art

Brief information

The Museum of Colonial Art occupies a 17th-century building that has served as a Jesuit college, a university, and the National Library. That is why the space itself matters here no less than the display cases: the museum presents the colonial era inside a building that also belongs to Bogotá’s old educational and bookish world.

The collection is centered on objects from the colonial period, from 1492 to 1810: paintings, wood carvings, furniture, jewelry, books, and documents. An important shift in perspective is that this is not only a museum of paintings. It lets you see how religious images, precious materials, books, and everyday objects existed side by side and together created the visual language of the colonial period.

What to notice first

It makes sense to compare three groups of objects: the paintings of Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos, carved and painted works from the Quito school, and objects made of silver and gold. The first group forms the basis of the collection: dozens of paintings and drawings by one of the best-known artists of New Granada. The second shows that colonial art was not only the flat surface of a canvas, but also work with wood, painting, and volume. The third shifts attention to ritual objects: goblets, chalices, crowns, scepters, and censers.

Another useful angle is the geography of materials and schools. In a single collection you encounter paintings from the Cusco school, ivory medallions from Huamanga, carvings from Mexico and Central America, as well as works from Italy, Spain, and Flanders. In this way, the museum reads as a network of connections: local New Granada appears alongside Peru, Mexico, and Europe.