Marvel at the splendor of its elegant colonial buildings, streets and flavors that live up to its nickname "City Of the Angels".
A legend is responsible for this beautiful city being known as Puebla de los Angeles.
The José Luis Bello y González Museum is an obligatory reference in the city.
Lhe variety, delicacy and beauty of the art collection it houses is of great notoriety, and is well known to locals and strangers alike.
It was the second public museum in the city of Puebla, inaugurated on July 21, 1944.
This cultural precinct is an excellent example of the Porfirian architecture of the end of the last century. It has 15 exhibition halls.
The 3,028 pieces in the collection tell the story of this property, since it is one of the few public museums in the world that houses an originally private collection in the building itself.
These works were first collected by the estate of José Luis Bello y González, and later by José Mariano Bello y Acedo. Today the collection is one of the most prestigious in Mexico, bringing together works from America, Europe and Asia, with diverse genres such as talavera, plumary art, woodwork, glass and metals.
The Bello Museum was founded on July 21, 1944.
The José Luis Bello y González Museum is a bastion of Puebla's collecting and is a clear example of the transition from a private collection to the public sphere that seeks, in addition to the survival of the collector's name, the recognition of our past as an axis of social cohesion and identity for all Puebla's citizens.
José Luis Bello y González, patriarch of one of the most representative families of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Puebla, in whose bosom was created the wonderful art collection that we can currently observe in the museum that bears his name.
José Luis Bello y González was born in 1822. By the middle of the 19th century, thanks to a disciplined and hardworking life, he already had an important fortune, which allowed him to move to Puebla to try his luck in business. He owned clothing stores, acquired several properties in downtown Puebla, as well as textile factories.
His comfortable economic situation allowed him to acquire works of art for his personal enjoyment. He began his collection with a series of oil paintings brought to him from Europe.
It is also known that a good part of Bello's collection was acquired from religious orders, and even from the Cathedral of Puebla itself; works that surely belonged, in their origins, to the episcopal collection.
Upon the death of José Luis on June 11, 1907, his estate passed to his children.
His son José Mariano Bello y Acedo followed in his father's footsteps by dedicating all the time he could spare to acquire art objects of all kinds, and increased the collection by buying new pieces from other antique dealers and collectors.
The works that today make up the collection of the Bello y González Museum were collected by the Puebla industrialist José Mariano Bello y Acedo (1869-1938).
He followed in the footsteps of his father José Luis Bello y González (1822-1907) who throughout his life amassed an enormous collection of art objects.
In 1918, Don Mariano established in his will that upon his death and that of his wife, Guadalupe Grajales, the art objects he had collected would be donated to the Academia de Bellas Artes de Puebla; he also indicated that a gallery would be erected in memory of his father and that the collection would never be fragmented.
Mariano Bello's objective in donating his collection was to honor his father's memory and to contribute to the artistic education of future generations, since this collection was one of the first in the country to be donated to the State, with an exclusively cultural and educational purpose.
The museum has 3,028 works of art from the Americas, Asia and Europe, some of which are 2,000 years old.
Unique pieces such as the famous floating pavilion, the Philippine chest with the oldest map of the city of Manila, the spheres of life carved in ivory, an 18th century pipe organ, a Roman amphora from the 1st century B.C. and an English Euphonicon in excellent state of preservation stand out.
El Museo José Luis Bello y González resguarda 22 diferentes tipos de objetos, procedentes de tres continentes.
Address: Av 3 Pte 302, Centro histórico de Puebla, 72000 Puebla, Pue.
More Official Info: Visit Puebla
Marvel at the splendor of its elegant colonial buildings, streets and flavors that live up to its nickname "City Of the Angels".
A legend is responsible for this beautiful city being known as Puebla de los Angeles.
The country is a land of contrasts. It has it all: a rich history and culture, a warm and pleasant climate, a varied geography, an impressive nature, a tasteful gastronomy and a friendly and helpful population ... in short: Mexico can fulfill all your wishes!