Guatemala’s Museo de Arte Colonial shut down by authorities

Guatemala’s Museo de Arte Colonial in Antigua was shut down after authorities from the Public Ministry arrived on 29 December to enforce a court-ordered relocation of 287 artworks, ending the collection’s 89-year residence in the museum’s 18th-century building. The action followed a legal proceeding brought by an undisclosed plaintiff alleging poor conservation conditions, and the works were moved over two weeks to temporary storage at the Palacio Nacional de la Cultura in Guatemala City. Six paintings remained in the closed museum because they were deemed too fragile to transport. The museum, founded in 1936 in a building that once housed the Universidad de San Carlos, holds key 17th-to-19th-century works including pieces by Guatemalan artist Tomás de Merlo and New Spain painter Cristóbal de Villalpando; Antigua has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1979.

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