The first seat of the Spanish Crown in the Royal Audience of Quito functioned near the convent of La Merced (current Cuenca and Chile streets).

After Diego Suarez de Figueroa, secretary of the audience, died in 1611, the government took over his small palace, built in the central square (Plaza Grande).

After the independence of Ecuador ended with the Battle of Pichincha in 1822, the palace became the headquarters of the South Department of Gran Colombia, welcoming the liberator Simón Bolívar sometimes.

Designated areas were organized to house objects within their cultural contexts, allotting several rooms and spaces within the palace, so as to make them publicly accessible.

To carry out this work, Maria del Carmen Molestina, researcher, PhD in Archaeology, and former director of the Museum of the Central Bank of Ecuador, cataloged objects and identified places to exhibit the gifts that the president has received while in office.

Under this system, it is now possible to acknowledge the cultural, historical and/or ethnographic value to presidential gifts and to identify all objects that represent and embody customs, traditions, ideologies, and forms of thinking of different Ecuadorian ethnic groups.