Museu de Arte Sacra
Rua Frei Durão 49
About
Although unassuming from the outside, the colonial mansion behind the cathedral houses one of the best collections of sacred art in Brazil. The vast collection is beautifully displayed and illuminated, and the stone floors and thick walls of the building create the appropriate stately ambience. On the ground floor you will find a large collection of silver and gold artifacts: crowns, diadems, crucifixes, and chalices. Also on display are intrinsically decorated custodias -- a type of chalice used only for the host -- as well as lanterns and processional crosses. Upstairs there's a collection of statues made by Aleijadinho, as well as a portrait of the artist done by Atayde. What makes the work of this baroque artist so vibrant is the painstaking effort he put in to preparing his canvasses and paint. Often working on wood, he started with a white layer to bring out the luminosity in the paint, followed by an ocher layer, and then a white, almost transparent layer to increase the dark and light contrast. In his paints, Atayde blended in gold dust, red dirt, coal dust, and metal shavings.
