Fundação Maria Luisa e Oscar Americano, Art museum in Morumbi, Brazil

The Fundação Maria Luisa and Oscar Americano is a house museum in São Paulo displaying paintings, tapestries, silverware, and furniture spanning from the 17th through 20th centuries. The rooms maintain the layout of a residence, with artworks and decorative pieces arranged as they would have been lived with by the original collectors.

Oscar Americano established the foundation in 1974 as a home-based museum following the death of his wife Maria Luisa in 1972. The initiative grew from a desire to share their accumulated art collection with the public.

The house was donated by Oscar Americano in memory of his wife Maria Luisa, who died in 1972; he died three months after founding the institution in 1974. The collection is divided into three nuclei: Colonial Brazil, with 17th-century paintings including works by the Dutch artist Frans Post; Imperial Brazil, with oil portraits and objects of the imperial era; and 20th-century masters such as Portinari, Brecheret, Lasar Segall and Di Cavalcanti. On Sundays the auditorium hosts classical recitals, and a tea room serves breakfast, brunch and afternoon tea.

The museum is located in the Morumbi neighborhood and opens Tuesday through Sunday for visitors. A modest admission fee provides access to the collections, and you can combine your visit with time in the surrounding gardens.

The landscape architect Otávio Teixeira Mendes was paid "per quality tree, planted and thriving", and the park was planted mostly with native Brazilian species. It now holds roughly 25,000 trees, among them angico, sibipiruna, pau-ferro, pau-brasil and jacaranda, plus about thirty identified plant species. The foundation publishes a walking route through the grounds.