New Collection: Museo Naval (Madrid)
An exciting new addition to the Mapping Project! We begin with just 15 objects from the Museo Naval, but we are hoping that this initial sharing of visual data will continue into the future. Currently, the Museo Naval does not have an online collection, and so this collaboration to add choice pieces from the Museo Naval's highly significant Philippine collection will be the first time these objects will be accessible on an online database.
(Some online presence for general information can be found at the Museo Naval's website here , and a few more pieces at the Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa) and a good collection, but not necessarily Philippine, with Google Arts here.
The Museo Naval has also given us permission to reprint an introduction to their Philippine collection in a Catalogue Exhibition essay of Asia y el Museo Naval with Curator Ramón Vega from 2018.
Extensive renovations were done at the Museo Naval in 2018, and when the new Museum opened to the public in 2019, there no longer was the extensive Philippine collection that used to be exhibited in the South East Asian wing. Luckily, Google Arts preserved the old lay-out virtually here. Today, the only objects that are on display are several cannons and some flags from Jolo that were captured in 1876. There is also a very detailed model of the Cavite Shipbuilding Docks from the late 19th century that is of great interest.
And although the Mapping Project does not include textual materials and photographs in its inventory, it is good to note that The Museo Naval is also home to a vast trove of manuscripts, rare books and illustrations, some of which are now online.
One which can add to the inventory however are these illustrations from the Malaspina expedition found here.