Museo de la Cárcova, Art museum in La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Ernesto de la Cárcova Museum displays over 700 reproductions of classical sculptures, featuring casts taken from originals in the British Museum and the Louvre. The collection spans multiple periods and cultures, arranged to show how artistic styles changed over time.
The buildings began as stables of the Lazareto, the municipal animal-control depot, in the early 20th century. In 1923 they were remodelled for the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de la Nación, promoted by painter Ernesto de la Cárcova. The cast museum opened there in 1928 on the recommendation of the Comisión Nacional de Bellas Artes, and received the public from 1932 under director Ángel Guido. Many casts came from Germany for the 1908 centenary of the May Revolution and were later ceded by the German government; around 200 Egyptian and Mesopotamian pieces arrived in 1935 from the Juan B. Ambrosetti museum.
The museum keeps a library of art books and a print collection with works by artists trained at the school, among them Aída Carballo. Its name honours Ernesto de la Cárcova, painter and first director of the national fine arts academy, who died in 1927, a year before the museum opened.
The museum stands at the corner of Boulevard Elvira Rawson de Dellepiane and Avenida España, in the southern Buenos Aires neighbourhood of La Boca, not Puerto Madero. The restoration added a main entrance from the boulevard through the park, plus ramps and accessible toilets. From that entrance the cast of David is visible head-on.
The collection includes several original casts made directly from pieces in the British Museum, letting visitors see the exact forms that scholars study in London. These direct copies give an authentic feel for how the ancient originals actually looked.
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