The Palaces Collection features around 4,000 pieces among furniture, dinnerware, silverware, tapestry, household items and artworks of different styles and materials from around the world.
The collection also holds the memory of the many seats of the state government, with pieces from ‘Pateo do Collegio’, the government´s first seat, in the 18th century; from the ‘Campos Elíseos’ Palace, the second seat, between 1911 and 1965; and ‘Horto’ Palace, between 1948 and 2012, while it functioned as a summer palace and later as a house museum.
Most of the plastic and decorative arts collection was acquired between the decades of 1960 and 1970, with the opening of the Bandeirantes and Boa Vista Palaces to public visitation. The acquisitions were made through auction, direct purchase from artists, private collectors, antiquarians and galleries. From 1980 on, most of the works were incorporated to the collection through donation and contests.
The Curatorship of the Artistic-Cultural Collection of the Governmental Palaces manages the artworks and historical objects of the Bandeirantes and Boa Vista palaces. The role of the curatorship is to ensure their preservation and to provide free and public access to them, developing a museological work which implicates conservation, research and communication about the objects and their stories.
With a conservation and restoration laboratory, the curatorship organizes exhibitions, seminars, cultural actions, publications about the collections and promotes the annual Brazilian Meeting on Palaces and Historic House Museums, aiming to establish an approach to society.
