This building, which formerly pumped the city's water supply, metamorphosed into Buenos Aires's most important art museum in 1930. It houses the world's largest collection of Argentine sculptures and paintings, along with European art dating from the medieval period to today, including works by Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh, many collected in Argentina's golden period. Concentrate on the Argentine paintings to better understand the country's history. Among them is La Hora Del Almuerzo (The Lunch Break, 1903), by Pío Collivadino, depicting Italian immigrant construction workers, one with a Garibaldi cap; another staring directly at you as he bites into a sandwich, his features reminiscent of young Argentine men today. At the turn of the last century, when Buenos Aires was rapidly reconstructing itself, such scenes were live, everywhere. Angel Della Valli's 1892 La Vuelta del Malon (The Return of the Indian) is a panoramic and emotional work, propaganda for General Julio A. Roca's Campaign of the Desert, when he slaughtered untold numbers of Indians in the Pampas. In the painting, horseriding Indians have captured a white woman, carried bare-breasted, a small cross in her cleavage, her complexion contrasted against the dark skin of her native captors who hold in triumph suitcases, skulls, crosses, and other signs of a sacked church. Don't miss the Manuel Jose de Guerrico Hall. He was one of the city's earliest collectors of medieval and Renaissance art and other decorative objects, including silver maté sets. Other works of distinction include the 15 sumptuous panels of gold and mother of pearl inlays Tablas de La Conquista de Mexico, from the workshop of Miguel Gonzalez.
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