Ricardo Brennand Institute

Ricardo Brennand, an industrialist from a Pernambuco sugar family, built this complex on his own land in the 1990s and 2000s: a castle in English Tudor revival style, moat included, set in gardens with sculpture, housing the collection he spent decades assembling. The armoury runs to thousands of pieces, mostly European edged weapons and armour. The other half is Dutch Brazil - the institute holds the world's largest collection of works by Frans Post, the painter who came with Johan Maurits in the 1630s and produced the first European landscapes of the Americas, alongside maps, documents and Albert Eckhout material from the same period. The building is a folly and knows it.

History

Ricardo Brennand, 1927-2020, an industrialist of English descent from Cabo de Santo Agostinho, began collecting arms and armour in the 1940s, and in 1990 he sold some of his factories to found a museum; before it opened he turned to the Dutch period in north-eastern Brazil, buying in five years a large group of paintings by Frans Post with Dutch landscapes, portraits, maps, tapestries, coins and rare books. The institute opened in September 2002 with an exhibition of all of Albert Eckhout's Brazilian paintings, lent by the National Museum of Denmark and shown outside Europe for the first time, and in 2003 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands opened its permanent exhibition on Frans Post and Dutch Brazil (Wikipedia, Ricardo Brennand Institute).

What you'll find

• A Tudor revival castle - built in the 1990s with a moat and gardens.
• Thousands of arms and armour - mostly European, assembled by one collector.
• The Frans Post holdings - the world's largest group of his Dutch Brazil landscapes.
• Dutch period documents - maps and records from the 1630s occupation.

When to go

All year, closed Mondays. Half a day.

Before you go

It is well outside the centre and public transport there is poor - budget for a taxi each way. The site is large and takes longer than expected. Labelling is largely in Portuguese. Photography rules vary by room.

Nearby

The Brennand ceramics workshop is close by; Recife Antigo is east in the city.

Key facts