Museu de Arte da Bahia

Genteel palace-turned-museum featuring historical paintings & sculptures, plus cultural events.

The Bahia Museum of Art (known by the acronym MAB) is a public state museum located in the city of Salvador. Founded in 1918, it is the oldest museum in Bahia and one of the first ten founded in Brazil. Established according to the model of an encyclopedic museum, under the name of State Museum, the institution emerged as a depository of the historical, ethnographic and scientific heritage of Bahia, gradually specializing in the following decades as a museum space devoted to the visual and decorative arts. [ 1]

It has a collection composed of approximately 5,000 works of great historical and artistic value, formed through the collection of several collections organized in Bahia since the mid-19th century, such as those by Jonathas Abbott and Góis Calmon, both acquired by the Bahian government. The collection includes paintings by the Bahian school and by foreign artists, dating from the 16th century onwards, imaginary from the colonial period and a wide range of decorative arts, with Brazilian, European and Oriental pieces. It also has a rich documentary collection, composed of photographs, maps, correspondence, etc. 

Since 1982, the Bahia Art Museum has been installed in the Palácio da Vitória, a neocolonial style building that in the past served as the headquarters of the Education and Health Secretariat. The space has a specialized library, with about 12,000 books, and auditorium. MAB hosts permanent and temporary exhibitions and organizes multiple cultural activities, such as courses, conference cycles, musical presentations and film screenings