National Museum of Fine Arts

In front of you is the Palace of Fine Arts, Chile's great temple of art. If its facade reminds you of Paris, that is no coincidence.

1A museum with a long history

The National Museum of Fine Arts was founded on 18 September 1880 with just 140 paintings, and it is one of the oldest art museums in Latin America. For years it drifted from one home to another, until the government decided to give it a palace of its own to celebrate the Centenary of independence.

2The Centenary palace

The design, chosen in 1905, was by the French-Chilean architect Emilio Jéquier, who also built Mapocho Station. He took his inspiration from the Petit Palais in Paris. The building opened on 21 September 1910 with a great international exhibition of more than 1,700 works.

Inside, the grand hall works like a glasshouse full of light: it is covered by a glass dome on a metal frame weighing 115 tonnes, brought from Belgium. On the facade, mosaic medallions honour great artists of history.

The sculpture at the entrance, Icarus and Daedalus, is a replica of Rebeca Matte's "United in Glory and in Death". Her husband donated it in 1930, after the artist's death.

At the back of the same building is the University of Chile's Museum of Contemporary Art. All around you stretches Parque Forestal, created in the early twentieth century on land freed by the channelling of the Mapocho.

3What to look for

• Rebeca Matte's sculpture, in front of the main door.
• The pediment with its allegory of the Fine Arts.
• The mosaic medallions on the frieze.