MUSEO REMIGIO CRESPO TORAL

The Remigio Crespo Toral Museum was for a long time the only public museum in the city and in its first years it fulfilled an essential task, national and international personalities visited it. Remigio Crespo Toral, born in 1860 and died in 1939, was a writer and politician from Cuenca (Senator of the Republic), one of the most important figures of Ecuadorian literature and poetry. The museum contains the municipal archives of the history of the city of Cuenca with all the treaties, agreements, maps, which forged the identity of the city and thanks to which it was built. Located in the middle of the Barranco, the building is part of Cuenca's heritage. Various objects that belonged to the Crespo family are displayed in the rooms of what was once their home: colonial, republican and religious art, archaeological pieces, various documents, paintings... In all, between 15,000 and 20,000 pieces, spread over 90 rooms. Of note is a collection of art (paintings and sculptures) from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, as well as no less than 24 paintings by Honorato Vázquez, one of the country's greatest landscape painters. There are also works by Joaquín Pinto, Miguel de Santiago, Pedro de León and the whole lineage of Rafael Cadena. The museum was still being renovated when we visited, and should be expanded to accommodate contemporary art exhibitions by local artists.