Museum of Fine Arts

The Museum of Fine Arts

The Santiago audio-guided tour presents you with the Museum of Fine Arts, a magnificent neoclassical palace inspired by the Petit Palais in Paris, which gives the visitor the impression of a detour through Paris.

The first art museum of Latin America

The building was designed by the Franco-Chilean architect Emilio Jéquier and inaugurated in 1910, on the occasion of the centenary of the Republic. It became the setting for the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, created in 1880 and until then housed in the outbuildings of the former Congress. The inaugural exhibition, one of the great events of the centenary, presented more than one thousand seven hundred works and was an immense success. The first art museum of Latin America, it is today listed as a historic monument.

What there is to see

The museum presents, through a collection of more than five thousand six hundred works, the successive waves of Chilean art, from the colonial era to the modern era, as well as temporary exhibitions devoted to great international artists. Its neoclassical architecture, its glass roof and its Parisian atmosphere make it as much a place of art as a monument in its own right. Entry is free.

Practical information

The Museum of Fine Arts is on the edge of the forest park, in the centre of Santiago. Entry is free; it can be visited according to its own hours, liable to vary depending on the season. Access is on the level.

When was the Museum of Fine Arts of Santiago inaugurated?

In 1910, for the centenary of the Republic, in a neoclassical palace designed by Emilio Jéquier; the collection had been created in 1880.

What does the Museum of Fine Arts present?

More than five thousand six hundred works retracing Chilean art from the colonial era to the present day, as well as international temporary exhibitions.