[2] The origin of the museum came in 1835, when art was confiscated from a monastery, including paintings by Zurbarán taken from the Charterhouse of Jerez de la Frontera.

The collection grew during the century, due to the city's Academy of Fine Arts which practised romanticism and neoclassicism.

From 1980, the architect Javier Feduchi planned a reform of the building in three phases, of which two have been completed.

Despite a range of prehistoric findings from Southern Andalusia, due to local history, it has a lack of artefacts from the Middle Ages.

The "Tía Norica" set of puppets, used at the Carnival of Cádiz, was acquired by the State.