Argentine Penitentiary Museum Antonio Ballvé, History museum in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Argentine Penitentiary Museum Antonio Ballvé is a history museum in Buenos Aires dedicated to Argentina's prison system and penal history. The collection includes uniforms, weapons, photographs, documents, and reconstructed cell spaces showing how incarceration changed over time.

The Jesuits began building the complex in 1735 under architect Andrés Blanqui, with a church, school and retreat house; after their 1767 expulsion it housed women from the Cabildo jail. It served as a barracks during the 1806–1807 British invasions, then a military hospital, mental hospice and women's residence. In 1890 the Good Shepherd congregation took over the women's prison until 1974, when the Federal Penitentiary Service moved inmates to Ezeiza.

The museum displays how inmates personalized their spaces and arranged objects that mattered in their daily routines. The exhibited belongings reveal what occupied people's lives inside these walls.

The museum is at Humberto Primo 378 in San Telmo, in the old Jesuit complex whose cloisters hold the exhibition rooms. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm; the source gives no closing day beyond that, so check before a Monday visit. The site was declared a National Historic Monument in 1982.

The museum features handmade items crafted by prisoners, including improvised tools and decorative objects. These objects reveal how inmates spent their time and expressed creativity despite living under strict conditions.