National Museum of Fine Arts Brazil

The National Museum of Fine Arts (Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, or MNBA in Portuguese) located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is among the chief cultural institutions in the country and is the most important and comprehensive collections of Brazilian Art. The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes has a particularly strong emphasis and large collection of Brazilian paintings and sculptures of the 1800s. The National Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro was founded in 1937 and inaugurated in 1938. Since its inception, the Museum’s collection has expanded greatly and now boasts over 20,000 pieces of paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints among other important forms of fine art including Brazilian folk art and African art. In 1973, the French-Renaissance style building was listed as an official Brazilian National Heritage site.