Housed in a neoclassical building, the Museo Nacional de San Carlos (National Museum of San Carlos) is devoted to European art and contains works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Parmigianino, Frans Hals, Anthony Van Dyck, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Auguste Rodin and other well-known European painters and sculptors.
The museum was founded in 1968 by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature) to house the collection of European art. The museum, however, also displays many works produced by the students and faculty of Academia de San Carlos (San Carlos Art Academy), founded during colonial times, which later became the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (the National School of Visual Arts) and currently is one of Mexico’s top art schools.