quiñones de león

ENGLISH
MUNICIPAL MUSEUM OF VIGO
‘QUIÑONES DE LEÓN’
PAZO DE CASTRELOS
The Quiñones de León Municipal Museum
is a unique institution in Galicia. Located in the
Pazo de Castrelos, it is an emblematic example of Galician noble architecture. It boasts
valuable artistic, archaeological and historical
collections, landscaped gardens and is surrounded by an extensive park. The whole site:
pazo, collections, gardens and park is listed as
Heritage of Cultural Interest.
The pazo (Country Manor House)
Recreation of a manor house at the beginning of the 20th century, with period furniture and
a wide range of decorative pieces (ceramics, carpets, lamps, clocks...). The tour of the pazo
moves through the main rooms: chapel, administrator’s office, reception room, historical library, golden room, Sargadelos dining room, great staircase and the Noble salon, on the first
floor. The exceptional patrimony of its art, history and archaeology collections must be added
to its value as a pazo.
Artistic Collections
The European Paintings Collection has a total de 128 works of art spanning the most important European pictorial schools from the 16th to 19th centuries: Italian, Dutch, Flemish, French,
German, Spanish and English. The thematic variety includes all genres: landscape, portrait, still
life. The pictures in this collection come mainly from the Policarpo Sanz Legacy and pieces on
deposit from the Prado Museum and the former National Museum of Modern Art (currently
Reina Sofía Museum) just before the outbreak of the Civil War.
José Policarpo Sanz y Soto (Marín 1841-París 1889) was a Galician magnate in the world of finances in Cuba and the United States who bequeathed all of his movable assets to the city
of Vigo. The Policarpo Sanz pictorial collection is made up of 110 paintings. His legacy is also
present in the different decorative art collections with furniture, china, silverware, miniatures...
The Francisco Fernández del Riego Art Gallery, in Calle Abeleira Menéndez, is the exhibition
space that the Municipal Museum devotes to the dissemination of the Galician Contemporary Art
Collection in the city centre, via long-term temporary exhibitions.
The Contemporary Galician Art collection has a total of 578 works by 133 Galician artists.
The chronological and stylistic journey allows it to be classified as one of the most important
of Galician plastic collections and is the most representative of the 20th century artistic movements. The visit takes us through Serafín Avendaño’s early impressionism, Jenaro Pérez de Villaamil’s romanticism, landscape painting and local customs of regionalists such as Sotomayor,
the rupture represented by Os Novos, Renewers of Galicia’s historical avant-garde movement,
headed by Laxeiro, Colmeiro, Maside, Seoane, Souto and Torres. The journey through the different ideas of the 20th century is thorough and includes such unique figures as Urbano Lugrís,
represented by his famous ‘The Old Sailor’s Room’, one of the most emblematic works of contemporary Galician art. The cycle closes with post-war generations up to the end of the century
with the Atlántica Group: Mantecón, Patiño, Monroy, Huete or Menchu Lamas.
The Francisco Fernández del Riego Art Gallery
Furniture and Decorative Arts
Over 1,000 objects make up the collections in this section, in which the ceramic and china section can be highlighted, with pieces from the china factories in Sèvres, Limoges, Meissen, Cardiff and Bristol; oriental china; a full set of dishes from the third era of the Royal Sargadelos
Factory. This heritage is joined by a collection that retraces the history of Álvarez, the Vigo
ceramic and china factory which became the most important one in Spain in the middle of the
20th century. This chapter is closed with an interesting and comprehensive collection of popular
Galician ceramics made up of 125 pieces from the Buño, Mondoñedo, Bonxe, Gundivós, Portomourisco, Niñodaguia, Tioira, Loñoa das Olas, Ramirás, Lobios, Meder, Salvaterra do Miño,
Guillarei, O Rosal, Cesantes, Bamio and Catoira pottery workshops.
The furniture displays interesting elements
of the European schools of the 18th and 19th
century, among which the French school can
be highlighted (Louis XV, Louis XVI, Empire...).
The furniture of Maximino Magariños and José
Liste, Galician cabinet makers between the 19th
and 20th centuries, are particularly relevant.
Decorative arts round off the catalogue with a
repertoire of clocks, oriental and Spanish carpets, lamps, glassware and silver and bronze
objects.
The Origins of Vigo
Vigo becomes a City
The Archaeology Collection spans from
the Palaeolithic period to the Romanization.
The permanent exhibition traces a vital journey from the dawn of man as a species in the
region of Vigo up to the first centuries of our
era. In this journey through prehistory and ancient history, the different elements that make
up the collection tell us about life in primeval
Vigo and its surroundings: how they fished,
what they traded, which gods they worshipped and how they buried the dead. The
finding of a Roman necropolis in the neighbourhood of Areal in 1953 led to the opening
of the first archaeology room in the museum
in the same decade. The sites represent the
entire municipality of Vigo and extend to the
south of the province of Pontevedra.
The History section focuses on transcendental events of the Modern Era, highlighting events,
such as the Reconquest (1809), the concession of the title of the city (1810) or the men that
contributed to the economic and industrial development of Vigo. The visitor will come into
contact with these events in the Pazo Library and the Noble Salon. The most relevant
pieces include the Mariscal Soult sabre, the alarm flags of Val do Fragoso, documents of the
period, and watercolours and drawings with prints of the Reconquest by the painter Román
Navarro (1893).
Historical Overview
Marquis of Alcedo
The location of the Quiñones de León Municipal Museum came about as an agricultural nobility Pazo
(Galician country manor) in the 17th century. It was located close to a former military building. The current
building has a classic central part flanked by two towers, with a layout in which the influence of the Spanish Renaissance style is evident. The gardens were
at their best at the end of the 19th century, when the
typical elements of an agricultural pazo are replaced
with an ornamental design conceived specifically for
an aristocratic residence with a marked rest and leisure purpose. The last inhabitant in this residential
period was the British Lady Maryanne Whyte, widow
of Fernando Quiñones de León y Elduayen. She was
the usufructuary of the pazo following the death of
her husband, although the property had been inherited by his father, Fernando Quiñones de León and
Francisco Martín, Marquis of Alcedo. The Marquis of
Alcedo decided to donate the pazo and its extensive
estate to the people of Vigo in 1924, establishing the
conditions that it should retain the name, Quiñones
de León; that it should house a museum and should always remain under public ownership. The City Council
paid compensation to the widow to forego her usufructuary right in July 1934. On 9th March 1935, the first
trust was established and it opened to the public as a
museum on 22nd July 1937.
Edited by: Municipal Museums Service of Vigo City Council. Department for Culture, Festivities and Museums Drafting of Texts: Francisco
J. Gil Supervision of Texts: José Ballesta de Diego, Director of the Quiñones de León Museum Translation into English: Alberto Estévez, S.L.
Photography: Carlos R. Prieto Graphic Design: Juan Gallego Estudio Gráfico Last Updated: December 2013 Legal Deposit: VG 893-2013
Address:
Parque de Castrelos s/n. 36213 Vigo
Tel.:0034 986 295 070
0034 986 295 075
Fax:0034 986 239 372
www.museodevigo.org
[email protected]
Entrance Fee: Free.
Free parking for cars and coaches.
Visit and Entrance Conditions:
Opening Times: Tuesday to Friday:
10 am to 2 pm. Saturdays: 5 pm to
8 pm. Sundays and Bank Holidays:
11 am to 2 pm. Closed: On Mondays,
including Bank Holidays, and 1st and
6th January, 24th, 25th and 31st December.
Garden Opening Times: (Every Day).
October to April: 9 am to 8.30 pm.
May to September: 9 am to 10.30 pm.
For further information (exhibitions,
guided tours and other activities), contact Vigo City Council’s Citizen Services Hotline 010. Calls from land lines
in Vigo: 010. From mobile phones or
land lines outside Vigo: 986 810 260.
E-mail: [email protected]. Service Times:
Monday to Friday: 8 am to 8 pm. Saturdays: 10 am to 2 pm.
www.vigocultura.org
Last entry is 20 minutes prior to closing. Visitors will be asked to leave rooms 10 minutes before closing.
To ensure entry at the desired time, groups of 20 people or more should contact the museum to make an advance booking.
For reasons of security and preservation of the collections, the following activities are not allowed:
• Eating, drinking, smoking, touching or sitting down except in the designated areas.
• Flash photography and/or use of tripods; and filming, except with prior authorisation from the museum.
• Entry with animals except guide dogs for the blind.
• Inappropriate behaviour that may damage the elements on display or cause inconvenience to other users.
• Entry with handbags, bags, rucksacks, umbrellas and, in general, objects that may jeopardise the security of the collections
on display. Visitors have free lockers in the museum reception to leave such objects during the visit.