Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco
Encyclopedia
The Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco is a museum of art located in the Retiro
ward of Buenos Aires
, Argentina
.
and Latin American art
(particularly of the Cuzco School
) amassed by Isaac Fernández Blanco from 1882 onwards. Fernández Blanco was an engineer by vocation; but he was also very fond of the violin
, and the family fortune let him had an important collection of string instruments. Later on, he extended his interest to objects of Spanish American culture: silverware
, religious icons, paintings, furniture, books, and documents. The Fernández Blanco patrimony, which totals nearly 10,000 works, is considered as one of the most important in Spanish American art, mostly in art and silverware from Peru
. His Peruvian art
collection features extensive silverware and fine arts, the latter including numerous original works from the Cuzco School of the colonial period
. Other collections include works from the Río de la Plata
basin, Jesuit and Quito
iconography
, Brazil
ian furniture
, and decorative arts from both colonial Latin America
and Spain.
Among the museum's peculiarities is a collection of hand fans, tortoiseshell
or horn ornamental comb
s used by women during the days of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
and of the subsequent Argentine Confederation
(in the first half of the 19th Century).
The museum was originally opened in the family's home near Congressional Plaza
in 1921, and his youngest daughter, Naïr, served as its first guide. Fernández Blanco sold the property and museum to the City of Buenos Aires the following year, however, and on May 25, 1922, it was re-inaugurated as the Museo de Arte Colonial. The founder remained at the helm of the museum until 1926, and continued to serve as curator
on an ad honorem basis until his death in 1928. His son-in-law and fellow connoisseur of Hispanic art, Dr. Alberto Gowland, continued to add to its collections, and in 1943, the city bequeathed to the museum an eclectic Baroque
mansion acquired from Martín Noel seven years earlier.
Noel, a French Argentine
architect graduate of the École Spéciale d'Architecture
, designed the mansion following his return to Argentina in 1914, and its construction was completed in 1922. He shared the residence with his brother, Dr. Carlos Noel, and graced the property with an Andalusia
n patio
. Sold to the city in 1936, the mansion became the home of the Colonial Art Museum in 1947, and it was renamed in its founder's honor at that time.
Its patrimony was further enriched with donations from Celina González Garaño in 1963 (mostly silverware and paintings) and from her brother Alfredo in 1972. Other significant contributions included collections bequeathed by Ricardo Braun Menéndez (1967), Fiat Concord (1970), Pedro San Martín (1975), Max von Buch (1978), Mario Hirsch (1983), María Alcorta de Waldorp (1997), the Angli family (2002), and from the estates of Mabel and María Castellano Fotheringham.
The Chief Curator of the Louvre
, Marie-Catherine Sahut, visited the museum in November 2009, and subsequently helped establish a joint studies committee with the renowned French institution.
Retiro, Buenos Aires
Retiro is a barrio in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Located in the northeast end of the city, Retiro is bordered on the south by the Puerto Madero and San Nicolás wards, and on the west by the Recoleta ward.-Urban character:...
ward of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
Overview
The museum originated with an extensive collection of Spanish artSpanish art
Spanish art is the visual art of Spain, and that of Spanish artists worldwide. Whilst an important contributor to Western art and producing many famous and influential artists Spanish art has often had distinctive characteristics and been assessed...
and Latin American art
Latin American art
Latin American art is the combined artistic expressions of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, as well as Latin American living in other regions....
(particularly of the Cuzco School
Cuzco School
The Cuzco School was a Roman Catholic artistic tradition based in Cusco, Peru during the Colonial period, in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries...
) amassed by Isaac Fernández Blanco from 1882 onwards. Fernández Blanco was an engineer by vocation; but he was also very fond of the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, and the family fortune let him had an important collection of string instruments. Later on, he extended his interest to objects of Spanish American culture: silverware
Silverware
Silverware may refer to:* Household silver or silverware, including dishware, cutlery, flatware, and candlesticks, made of sterling, Britannia or Sheffield plate silver, or a silver-plated base metal, or stainless steel...
, religious icons, paintings, furniture, books, and documents. The Fernández Blanco patrimony, which totals nearly 10,000 works, is considered as one of the most important in Spanish American art, mostly in art and silverware from Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
. His Peruvian art
Peruvian art
Peruvian art has its origin in the Andean civilizations. These civilizations rose in the territory of modern Peru before the arrival of the Spanish.- Pre-Columbian art:...
collection features extensive silverware and fine arts, the latter including numerous original works from the Cuzco School of the colonial period
Viceroyalty of Peru
Created in 1542, the Viceroyalty of Peru was a Spanish colonial administrative district that originally contained most of Spanish-ruled South America, governed from the capital of Lima...
. Other collections include works from the Río de la Plata
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...
basin, Jesuit and Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
, and decorative arts from both colonial Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
and Spain.
Among the museum's peculiarities is a collection of hand fans, tortoiseshell
Tortoiseshell material
Tortoiseshell or tortoise shell is a material produced mainly from the shell of the hawksbill turtle, an endangered species. It was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s in the manufacture of items such as combs, sunglasses, guitar picks and knitting needles...
or horn ornamental comb
Comb
A comb is a toothed device used in hair care for straightening and cleaning hair or other fibres. Combs are among the oldest tools found by archaeologists...
s used by women during the days of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, , was the last and most short-lived Viceroyalty of the Spanish Empire in America.The Viceroyalty was established in 1776 out of several former Viceroyalty of Perú dependencies that mainly extended over the Río de la Plata basin, roughly the present day...
and of the subsequent Argentine Confederation
Argentine Confederation
The Argentine Confederation is one of the official names of Argentina, according to the Argentine Constitution, Article 35...
(in the first half of the 19th Century).
The museum was originally opened in the family's home near Congressional Plaza
Congressional Plaza
Congressional Plaza is a public park facing the Argentine Congress in Buenos Aires. The plaza is part of a 3 hectare open space comprising three adjoining plazas to the east of the Congress building...
in 1921, and his youngest daughter, Naïr, served as its first guide. Fernández Blanco sold the property and museum to the City of Buenos Aires the following year, however, and on May 25, 1922, it was re-inaugurated as the Museo de Arte Colonial. The founder remained at the helm of the museum until 1926, and continued to serve as curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
on an ad honorem basis until his death in 1928. His son-in-law and fellow connoisseur of Hispanic art, Dr. Alberto Gowland, continued to add to its collections, and in 1943, the city bequeathed to the museum an eclectic Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
mansion acquired from Martín Noel seven years earlier.
Noel, a French Argentine
French Argentine
A French Argentine is an Argentine citizen of full or partial French ancestry. French Argentines form the third or fourth largest ancestry group after Italian Argentines, Spanish Argentines, and perhaps German Argentines...
architect graduate of the École Spéciale d'Architecture
École Spéciale d'Architecture
The École Spéciale d'Architecture is a private school for architecture at 254, boulevard Raspail in Paris, France.The school was founded in 1865 by engineer Emile Trélat as reaction against the educational monopoly of Beaux-Arts architecture...
, designed the mansion following his return to Argentina in 1914, and its construction was completed in 1922. He shared the residence with his brother, Dr. Carlos Noel, and graced the property with an Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
n patio
Patio
A patio is an outdoor space generally used for dining or recreation that adjoins a residence and is typically paved. It may refer to a roofless inner courtyard of the sort found in Spanish-style dwellings or a paved area between a residence and a garden....
. Sold to the city in 1936, the mansion became the home of the Colonial Art Museum in 1947, and it was renamed in its founder's honor at that time.
Its patrimony was further enriched with donations from Celina González Garaño in 1963 (mostly silverware and paintings) and from her brother Alfredo in 1972. Other significant contributions included collections bequeathed by Ricardo Braun Menéndez (1967), Fiat Concord (1970), Pedro San Martín (1975), Max von Buch (1978), Mario Hirsch (1983), María Alcorta de Waldorp (1997), the Angli family (2002), and from the estates of Mabel and María Castellano Fotheringham.
The Chief Curator of the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, Marie-Catherine Sahut, visited the museum in November 2009, and subsequently helped establish a joint studies committee with the renowned French institution.