At the address of 14 Calle San Francisco, you will find this museum which is ignored by the general public, but cherished by art lovers from Bilbao, both for its pedigree and for having one of the best collections of copies of classic sculptures that can be found in Europe. The Museum of Artistic Reproductions of Bilbao, one of the oldest in the city, was created in 1927 with the aim of completing the cultural offer of the town and helping the students of Fine Arts to learn.
Since its foundation, the museum has has different venues until it was definitively housed in the Neo-Gothic Church of the Heart of Mary. This location provides a special atmosphere to his works as seen in the temple where his main exhibition is exhibited.
From the very beginning, the promoters of this Museum gave priority to the quality of the works they wanted to reproduce rather than to quantity. The first works arrived from Madrid, among them: David de Verrochio, El Niño de la Espina, El Torso de Belvedere… Later arrived other replicas of European museums, for example, from Vaticamo Laocoön and His Sons or Apollo Belvedere, and from Louvre Museum in Paris The Venus de Nilo and Victory of Samothrace.
In short, this is one of the oldest museums in the Biscayan capital, where you can discover works of the great classics of extraordinary quality whose originals are in the best museums in Europe.
A visit here (see schedule) offers the opportunity to fully enjoy the main classical sculptural works without the hassle of a crowded museum; it is truly a unique experience.
