The Egyptian Collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana

Descrizione

The National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana (Cuba) houses a collection of Egyptian antiquities considered by many specialists as the best and most complete of its kind in Latin America.

This part of the museum’s collection is known as Collection Earl of Lagunillas, in honor of the collector Joaquín Gumà Herrera (Havana, 1909-1980), who gathered the bulk of it.

Passionate about classic antiquity, his remarkable knowledge allowed him to maintain contacts with great specialists in the different cultures that interested him, whom he consulted before and after his purchases of works in the international markets.

The collection consists of about 114 Egyptian antiquities representing almost all the historical periods of this civilization, including a magnificent papyrus of the XXI Dynasty, a sarcophagus (gift of the Egyptian Government to Cuba), heads of statues of kings, votive objects, amulets, false doors, funerary stelae, ushabtis, canopic jars, Fayum portraits and reliefs with decorations belonging to tombs still to be found.