Argentina Guide
The Litoral and the Gran Chaco
Museo Municipal de Arte Decorativo Firma y Odilo Estévez
Address: Santa Fe 748
Opening time: Thurs– Sun Jan to mid-March 9am–2pm, mid-March to Dec 3–8pm
Price: Free
Housed in a fantastically ornate mansion, whose facade reflects the early twentieth-century fashion for heavily ornamental moulding, the museum exhibits the collection of the building's former occupants, the Estévez family, Galician immigrants who made their fortune by growing mate. It's a stunning display – every inch of the interior is furnished and ornamented with objects seemingly chosen to exemplify the wealth and taste of the owners, from Egyptian glassware and tiny Greek sculptures to Flemish tapestry and Limoges porcelain, via pre-Columbian ceramics and Spanish ivory figures. There's a small but impressive painting collection, too, including Portrait of a Gentleman by French Neoclassicist Jacques Louis David and a Goya portrait of Doña Maria Teresa Ruiz de Apodaca de Sesma with strikingly piercing black eyes.