Fernando Saldías Díaz Art Museum: the total work of art in the district of Lince

The district of Lince in Lima is home to one of the most prominent museums in the city. It is the Fernando Saldías Díaz Art Museum, founded and directed by the Peruvian artist Fernando Saldías Díaz, who died in 2017.

The painter and sculptor was known for his research in the field of European painting from the Renaissance to the Baroque. And he was an artist who understood his trade, an old-school painter; for him, art was a skill: an artist had to understand what the old masters did and master their techniques. He practiced these techniques copying old masters, so well that even the experts thought they were standing in front of the original. With his museum, Fernando Saldías Díaz made his knowledge and his work accessible, but also the art of students and visitors from Peru and Europe. Founded in 1969, the museum underwent several restructurings until it became what it is today.

It is wonderful. A colonial building filled with a variety of works of art. On the ground floor there are modern Peruvian archaeological finds and ceramics, baroque furniture and gilded mirrors alongside luxurious paintings from different eras: copies of works by famous painters such as Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt, separately, named in the Artists The rooms are located in the Rubens-Saal, the Rembrandt-Saal …

The installations are not neutral exhibition halls, but works of art that are completely furnished in themselves. The Dutch-style black and white tile floors are as much a part of it as paneled walls and coffered ceilings.

The upper floor is dedicated to the work of the painter, as well as the workshop that the artist has designed following the model of Rubens’ works. Maybe the compilation of these times may seem a bit strange. The idea behind this is to gather, present and confront the most important works of history in one place.