Museu do Oratório, Religious art museum at Adro do Carmo, Ouro Preto, Brazil.
Museu do Oratório is a religious art museum housed in a three-story historic building next to Igreja do Carmo, displaying more than 160 portable home altars and around 300 sacred images. The collection features handcrafted pieces and saint figures from different regions of Brazil.
The building once served as a residence for Aleijadinho, Brazil's principal baroque sculptor, before being transformed into a museum in 1998 with the help of French museographer Pierre Catel. This conversion preserved the historic structure while creating a space for religious artwork.
The collection shows how Brazilians practiced their faith at home through small portable altars and religious images from the 17th to 20th centuries. These objects reveal the personal ways people created sacred spaces in their everyday lives.
The museum is housed in a compact three-story building that is easy to explore on foot and clearly visible from the nearby Igreja do Carmo. The interior is straightforward to navigate, making it possible to view the entire collection at a comfortable pace.
The entire collection was donated by Angela Gutierrez to Brazil's cultural heritage authority, making it the largest assembled group of home altars in the country. This generous gift ensured these rare objects would be preserved for future generations.
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