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

Founder’s HouseCasa del Fundador Gonzalo Suárez Rendón

5517
Founder’s House is tied to Tunja’s birth in 1539, when conquistador Gonzalo Suárez Rendón established a residence for the new colonial elite. Around its sober courtyard, c. 1590 painted ceilings and mural fragments 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. The house endures as a rare witness to early domestic power in colonial Colombia.