Aesthetic Artefacts or Documents? Museums of Art and History in Late Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires

Argentina's National Museum of History and the National Museum of Fine Arts were created almost at the same time in Buenos Aires, towards the end of the nineteenth century. Many of the artefacts collected in both museums are of the same kind: oil paintings, drawings, engravings, and sculptures, depicting battles, portraits, landscapes, and costumbrista scenes. However, the artefacts in each institution were understood differently: those in the Museum of Fine Arts were considered as ‘art’, while those in the other museum were seen as historical documents. This differentiation between the material of art history and that of history deserves critical examination. The creation of each museum may explain this distinction, as well as offering a point of departure for further reflections about the way in which those artefacts have been exhibited, studied, and preserved.