The Museum of the Americas grew from royal collecting traditions that began with Madrid’s eighteenth-century Cabinet of Natural History. Its collections span many times and communities, making the museum a place to consider how objects travel and how institutions frame the histories of the Americas.
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The collections here have a history of their own before they reach the museum. One institutional starting point is the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, established under Charles III in 1771 and connected to the collecting work of Pedro Franco Dávila.
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- The Royal Cabinet of Natural History was established under Charles III in 1771.
- The cabinet’s early collections were linked to Pedro Franco Dávila.
- The museum’s holdings include pre-Hispanic, colonial, and ethnographic collections.
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