Mannerist Elephant Mural
Mannerist Elephant Mural
Fantastical Creature with Armored Hide
Fantastical Creature with Armored Hide
Mannerist Mural with Exotic Animals
Mannerist Mural with Exotic Animals
Hunting Scene
Hunting Scene
Max Beneath the Ceiling of the Great Hall
Max Beneath the Ceiling of the Great Hall
Mannerist Ceiling with Exotic Fauna
Mannerist Ceiling with Exotic Fauna
Colonial Brazier with Firewood
Colonial Brazier with Firewood
Grotesque Eastern Jaldeta
Grotesque Eastern Jaldeta
Velvet-Covered Chest with Iron Fittings
Velvet-Covered Chest with Iron Fittings
Spanish Iron-Bound Chest
Spanish Iron-Bound Chest
Colonial Banner with Heraldic Emblem
Colonial Banner with Heraldic Emblem

Gonzalo Suárez Rendón Founder’s HouseCasa del Fundador Gonzalo Suárez Rendón

7510
Tied to Tunja’s birth in 1539, this house is associated with conquistador Gonzalo Suárez Rendón and the emergence of a new colonial elite. Around its sober courtyard, painted ceilings and mural fragments (c. 1590) unfold Mannerist grotesques, IHS emblems, hunting scenes, and imagined beasts—some recalling Dürer’s Rhinoceros—using art to perform piety, lineage, and a claimed command of unfamiliar nature. It remains a rare witness to early domestic power in colonial Colombia.