MUSEO DE ARTES DECORATIVAS (PALACIO TARANCO)

The city's Museum of Decorative Arts, declared a National Historic Monument, shows the influence of European artistic movements in Uruguay in permanent and temporary exhibitions. The building, a French-style mansion, once belonged to the Tarancos, a wealthy family of Galician immigrants who arrived from La Coruña in 1872. José Taranco, followed by his two brothers Félix and Hermenegildo, became an importer of European goods, mainly products to decorate the houses of the bourgeoisie and the state palaces. In order to attract the attention of buyers, he decided that his residence should serve as a showcase for the magnificence of his business. He therefore called upon Charles Louis Girault, the prestigious French architect and author of the Petit Palais in Paris, to design his sumptuous residence. The palace, which cost nearly 300,000 pesos (the equivalent of four million dollars today) was inaugurated in 1910. Today, visitors can appreciate the excellent state of conservation of the building, its Louis XV furniture and its impressive art collection, where works by artists such as Ribera (1591-1652), Teniers (1610-1690), Van der Helst (1613-1670), Zuloaga (1870-1945), Benlliure (1862-1947) and Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) are harmoniously displayed, relics of a past splendor. In the basement there is an exhibition of Greco-Roman archaeology from the ^13th century BC to the ^2nd century AD.