Dr. Andrés Barbero (1877 - 1951)

    The Etnographic Museum "Andrés Barbero" has been located since 1956  in the building Museum Dr. Andrés Barbero, on España street 217 of Asunción's city.

    It is property of the"THE PITY" Foundation, Civil Entity of Charity and Culture, which administres the patrimony of Dr.Barbero's family and continuadora of their philanthropic purposes.

    The Museum, owes its existence to the great humanitarian and scholar Dr. Andrés Barbero who as president of the Scientific Society of Paraguay and in collaboration with other institutions, made it. It was founded on 21 of June of 1929, and it was signed by Dr. Barbero and the presidents of the Paraguayan Gym and Guarani Culture, many other people highlighted in the sciences and the culture nacional. Through acquisitions and donations, Dr. Barbero gathered the first collection of the Museum, which derived in the formation of the current collection of the cultures of different indigenous partialities of the Paraguay through time, besides documents, books, pictures, etc.

From 1934 to 1946 the illustrous german was Prof. Dr. Max Schmidt, managed and organized the Museum. He wa a great anthropology researcher of the Matto Grosso´s area. To him we owe the first systematic study on the prehistoric discoveries of Paraguay and several study trips to the different indigenous tribes of the Chaco.

At the deaths of Dr. Barbero and Prof. Dr. Schmidt, the conservation activities of the Museum fall into disappear. This was the case until 1952 when the Dra. Branislava Susnik took on the reorganization of the Museum, increasing the collections by means of study trips among the indigenous tribes of Paraguay. In 1956 the current headquarters of the Museum was inaugurated, beginning a new period of exhibitions of collections, an organized specialized library and systematized documentation.

   From its beginnings the Museum was devoted to the publication of scientific works. In first order the Magazine of the Scientific Society of Paraguay, etnographics series (1921 - 1946); secondly the Bulletin of the Scientific Society of Paraguay and of the Etnographic Museum "Andrés Barbero" (1957 -  1962) and annual publications of the Museum (1959 - 1989)