---

The Carlos Costa Pinto Museum is located at Avenida Sete de Setembro, 2490, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. It is a foundation, a private cultural institution maintained through an agreement with the Government of the State of Bahia.



The house where the museum is installed, designed by architects Euvaldo Reis and Diógenes Rebouças, in American Colonial style, dates from 1958. Initially intended for the family's residence, it was never inhabited. It has undergone adaptations to accommodate its new function and house a collection of 3,175 pieces.



It was inaugurated on November 5, 1969, thanks to the support of the then Governor of the State of Bahia, Dr. Luís Viana Filho. Subsequently, Governor Antônio Carlos Magalhães completed it with the facilities of the library and auditorium.



The collection was donated by the widow Margarida Ballalai de Carvalho Costa Pinto (1895 - 1979), daughter of João Pereira de Carvalho and Helena Ballalai de Carvalho, a traditional Bahian family. He married Carlos Aguiar da Costa Pinto at the age of 17. They had no children. In order to make her husband's dream come true, a wealthy merchant who cultivated the habit of collecting art pieces and who was most responsible for the collection that reconstructs the daily lives of the old families of the sugar aristocracy in Bahia between the 17th and 19th centuries.



The museum portrays the opulence of the Bahian aristocracy, represented mainly in the collection of jewelry made of gold and precious stones. Silverware makes up the most numerous section of the collection, with 923 pieces, most of which originated in Porto, from the end of the 19th century. Pieces such as the insignia of the Imperial Order of the Cruise, the Military Order of Christ and that of the Imperial Order of the Rose stand out, in addition to the crystal lamps Baccarat, France, and furniture dating back to the 17th to the 19th century.

---