Museo de Jaén

The Museum of Jaén has its origins in the Museum of Paintings founded in 1846 with works confiscated from religious orders as a result of the Mendizábal Disentailment. In 1914 the Jaén Provincial Museum of Fine Arts was established. For its emplacement, the local politician, José del Prado y Palacio backed the acquisition of a 4,200-square-metre plot of land on the Paseo de la Estación.

In 1969, the present-day Museum of Jaén was created by merging the Fine Arts Museum with the Provincial Archaeological Museum established in 1963. It opened its doors in its current location in 1971. The museum is owned by the state and managed by the Junta de Andalucía.

The main building was planned in 1919 by Antonio Flórez Urdapilleta, the same architect who designed the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid. It is a classical-style palace with a quadrangular ground plan and towers on its corners. Two emblematic portals of Renaissance Jaén were added to the building, one from the Pósito building, designed by Francisco del Castillo, and the other from the church of San Miguel, attributed to Andrés de Vandelvira. The architect Luis Berges Roldán undertook the definitive adaptation of this building and drew up plans for two others that would complete the home of the Museum of Jaén.

In the entrance lobby you are made aware that there are two sections to this museum -Archaeology and Fine Arts- by means of a series of works including the grand historical paintings of Arturo Montero Calvo and Rafael Hidalgo de Caviedes and some Roman inscriptions.
Description in english