MUBAG — Museu de Belles Arts Gravina

The MUBAG, the Gravina Museum of Fine Arts, occupies the Palacio del Conde de Lumiares, a four-storey building put up between 1748 and 1808 on plots left in ruins during the War of the Spanish Succession, in the old town of Alicante. The palace is a listed local historical-artistic monument, and its stone façade and inner courtyard remain one of the finest examples of 18th-century civil architecture still standing in the city.

From palace to museum

The building was restored between 1998 and 2001 by the Diputación's architecture team, and the museum opened that same year. Its ground floor, defined by a series of arches, was historically used to store goods brought in through the port, a very different role from the one it plays today, since the same bays that once held sacks and bales now house the permanent galleries.

The collection

The MUBAG brings together painting and sculpture from Alicante from the 16th century to the early decades of the 20th: out of a collection of around two thousand pieces, it displays roughly five hundred works by artists such as Joaquín Agrasot, Emilio Varela, Fernando Cabrera and Plácido Francés, alongside a sculpture by Francisco Salzillo and a portrait of Fernando VII painted by Vicente López Portaña. The museum also runs temporary exhibitions and educational activities throughout the year, so there is usually more on show than the permanent collection alone. Together with the MARQ and the MACA, it is one of the three major museums in the historic centre, and since entry is free, it also appears in the free museums in Alicante guide. Its location, a short walk from the Basílica de Santa María, makes it easy to combine with a longer walk through the rest of the historic old town centre and its narrow streets.