Mercedes Santamarina

Interested in art from an early age, Santamarina amassed a large collection of pieces over the course of her life.

Mercedes Santamarina was born on 18 June 1896 in Buenos Aires[2][3] into an aristocratic family of Spanish origins.

[1] The Santamarina family owned La Pola,[7] a large estancia (private plot of land) in Tandil in the Buenos Aires Province.

[1] Santamarina's collection of paintings contained several important and historically significant works,[3][6] mainly 19th-century French paintings[8] by artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-Louis Forain, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Alfred Sisley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Félix Ziem.

[3] A large part of the collection in Buenos Aires was stolen in 1980 and a further theft (though this time of only two prints) also occurred in 1997.