On 29 December, authorities from Guatemala’s Public Ministry (MP) arrived at the Museo de Arte Colonial in Antigua to demand the court-ordered relocation of 287 works of art. The collection had been housed inside the museum’s 18th-century building for 89 years. The raid was the result of a local legal proceeding initiated by an undisclosed plaintiff who had alleged poor conservation conditions inside.
A hasty two-week relocation, followed by the museum’s closure, has raised concerns about the institution’s future and the fate of its collection, which is now temporarily stored at the Palacio Nacional de la Cultura in Guatemala City. Six paintings, however, still remain in the shuttered museum building as they were too fragile to remove.
The Museo de Arte Colonial opened in 1936 in an historic building that once housed the Universidad de San Carlos. “Its opening was part of the government’s effort to promote Antigua as a tourism centre,” Johann Melchor, a local historian and expert in Guatemalan colonial art, tells The Art Newspaper. “It housed key 17th-to-19th-century paintings and sculptures by Guatemalan artists like Tomás de Merlo and works by Cristóbal de Villalpando from New Spain.”
The building is owned by the city of Antigua—a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1979. The city granted a renewable right of use to Guatemala’s Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for the collection. “The agreement with Antigua expires in 2032, and we have not received communications indicating otherwise,” Liwy Grazioso, Guatemala’s cultural minister, said at a press conference in January.
Emergency relocation and conservation concerns
The court decision prompted an “emergency” relocation of the works, which continued until 12 January, when the MP shut off the building’s security cameras and returned the keys to the city. But Grazioso sees inconsistencies in the proceedings, saying the raid stemmed from a “unilateral hearing” and that access to the case file has been denied. “We have requested an urgent meeting with Antigua’s mayor and filed legal challenges against this decision,” he said.
Of particular concern are the six large-scale paintings still inside—five of them by Tomás de Merlo (1694-1739)—left behind due to their fragility and now completely unsupervised, as the security personnel have been dismissed. “Consolidation work is conducted in case we are forced to move them, which puts them at risk,” Grazioso said. “We have requested a halt, but if the MP disregards conservation advice, it must assume responsibility.”
The court decision was based mainly on a report by the Consejo Nacional para la Protección de la Antigua Guatemala (CNPAG), which the MP had asked to assess the museum’s collection in May 2025. The CNPAG’s preliminary report, however, noted that only ten works were in urgent need of restoration and recommended that it be carried out in situ.
Conservation issues are nothing new at the museum. “The works, part of Guatemala’s most important public colonial collection, were not kept under ideal conditions, but they have remained in the same environment for 50 years,” says Javier Quiñónez, the CNPAG’s Antigua conservator. “Sudden changes in temperature, humidity and ventilation can cause irreversible damage, as materials are vulnerable to abrupt shifts. For example, wood may crack and paint layers may detach.”
The handling of the works—many of which are key examples of Antigua’s unique sculpture style—requires a timely process, which is unlikely to have happened given the time constraints in taking them out of the building. “When artworks left the museum to be exhibited abroad, they were individually assessed by experts,” says Blanca Betancourt, a former museum director for more than 30 years. “All legal requirements were fulfilled, and they were packed under strict standards.”
This issue is not isolated either. Antigua has seen the closure of other museums, like the Museo del Libro Antiguo in 2021. And the historic venue that once housed the Museo Santiago de los Caballeros was repurposed in 2021 as the Museo Nacional de Arte de Guatemala, the city’s only remaining public museum. But the closure of the Museo de Arte Colonial is highly unusual. “This is the first I have heard of a court proceeding related to heritage in Guatemala,” Melchor says.
Recent events may also bear political implications, as the museum building could potentially be repurposed. “The museum was a community hub where students and visitors engaged with the art, programming and the venue,” Betancourt says. As a result of the closure, the Bienal de Arte Paiz, which uses the museum as one of its venues, was forced to relocate works to Guatemala City.
“This reflects a broader issue concerning Guatemalan heritage,” Melchor says of the whole situation.
Meanwhile, uncertainty reigns as the Museo de Arte Colonial works await their fate in storage. “The priority is verifying the collection’s conditions,” Betancourt says, “and hopefully its exhibition in the same venue or in another one in Antigua.”