National Museum of Fine Arts

On Avenida Rio Branco, in Cinelândia, the National Museum of Fine Arts holds one of the leading collections of 19th- and 20th-century Brazilian art. This is the place to see up close paintings that many Brazilians know from the pages of their school history books.

The museum was created in 1937, but its collection is much older: it is heir to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, founded in 1826, which grew out of the French Artistic Mission — a group of artists who arrived in Rio in 1816, among them Jean-Baptiste Debret and Nicolas-Antoine Taunay.

The 1908 building was designed by Spanish architect Adolfo Morales de los Ríos to house the National School of Fine Arts, and its façade is inspired by the Louvre in Paris. It completes the Cinelândia ensemble, alongside the Theatro Municipal and the National Library.

Highlights include Victor Meirelles’s “Primeira Missa no Brasil” (First Mass in Brazil, 1860) and Pedro Américo’s monumental “Batalha do Avaí” (Battle of Avaí), from the Paraguayan War — canvases that helped shape how 19th-century Brazil saw itself. From the 20th century, Candido Portinari’s “Café” (Coffee, 1935), about work on the plantations, stands out.

The collection also includes works by Almeida Júnior, with his scenes of rural São Paulo, and by Eliseu Visconti, who also decorated the neighboring Theatro Municipal, as well as sculptures, prints and works by European artists. It is an overview of how Brazilian art took shape and changed.