Qualla: National Museum of Decorative Arts, Buenos Aires

National Museum of Decorative Arts, Buenos Aires: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fernando Martello, CC BY-SA 4.0. Matías Errázuriz built this palace for a retirement he would spend with his wife. They had married in 1897, he the son of Chilean émigrés and she, Josefina de Alvear, the granddaughter of an independence hero. He served as Argentina's ambassador to France, fell in love with the architecture of old Europe, and resolved to bring it home. He hired a celebrated Parisian architect, imported the marble and the mirrors and the woodwork from across the Atlantic, and filled the rooms with antiques and masterpieces. Then, in 1935, Josefina died. The grieving widower gave the whole magnificent house to the people of Argentina, and it became a museum.

Image: Fernando Martello | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Museum of Decorative Arts, Buenos Aires: A Piece of Paris on the Pampa

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kevin Gabbert - User: (WT-shared) Kevin James at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. The couple commissioned the French architect René Sergent in 1911, the designer whose work would set the standard for Buenos Aires's grandest mansions. The First World War slowed everything, so the palace was not finished until around 1916, with the couple spending two more years...

Image: Kevin Gabbert - User: (WT-shared) Kevin James at wts wikivoyage | Public domain

National Museum of Decorative Arts, Buenos Aires: Rooms Like Movements in Music

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roberto Fiadone, CC BY-SA 4.0. Inside, each room plays a different note from the European past. The double-height Great Hall conjures a Tudor English manor, its star-patterned floor inlaid in maple and walnut, five great chandeliers hung from hidden iron beams. The dining room reaches for Versailles, modeling ...

Image: Roberto Fiadone | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Museum of Decorative Arts, Buenos Aires: El Greco by the River Plate

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gonzalo Vila, CC BY-SA 4.0. The collection the Errázuriz family assembled, now grown to more than 4,000 objects across a dozen halls, would honor any museum in Europe. On the walls hangs El Greco's Jesus Bearing the Cross Uphill, its elongated Christ glowing in the Spanish master's strange light, alongside ...

Image: Gonzalo Vila | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Museum of Decorative Arts, Buenos Aires: The Gift and What It Means

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HalloweenHJB, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Josefina died in 1935, Matías followed his children's advice and bequeathed the mansion to the state. On 18 December 1937, under Law 12351, Argentina bought the residence and its collections, and the National Museum of Decorative Arts was born. It is hard not to read the ges...

Image: HalloweenHJB | CC BY-SA 4.0