[5] The Ricardo Brennand Institute was inaugurated in September 2002, with an exhibition devoted to Albert Eckhout, displaying for the first time outside Europe all of his paintings done in Brazil, which belong to the National Museum of Denmark.

The institute is headquartered in a castle-like set of structures, named "Castelo de São João",[8] designed after the Tudor style, with a total gross area of 77,000 square meters.

[1][2] The complex is surrounded by a 18,000 hectares (44,000 acres) garden,[1] endowed with artificial lakes and a number of large-size sculptures, such as The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin, The lady and the horse by Fernando Botero, and other works by Sonia Ebling, Leopoldo Martins, etc.

[2][10] The Ricardo Brennand Institute holdings comprise collections of painting, sculpture, armory, tapestry, decorative arts and furniture, with objects ranging from Early Middle Ages to the 20th century, proceeding from Europe, Asia, Americas and Africa.

[1][11] The assemblage of Medieval and melee weapons includes daggers, stilettos, swords, maces, flails, halberds, crossbows, knives, pocketknives and other objects produced between the 15th and the 21st century.

[11] The collection of decorative arts includes objects from Europe, Asia and Africa, dating back to the 17th century, such as candlesticks, candelabra, jugs, mosaics, stained glass windows, miniature caskets, Chinese ceramics, musical instruments, etc.

Among the highlights, there is a pair of French blackamoor torcheres, modeled by Émile Guillemin and cast by Barbedienne in the 19th century, as well as a number of small-scale statuary by the traditional Parisian firm E. Granger.

[12] The collection of furniture is mostly composed of English and French examples, including storage and resting pieces, such as chests, sideboards, cupboards, bookcases, seats and chairs, made with oak, walnut and other types of wood.

[22] The visual arts collection comprises paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings dating back to the 15th century, executed by Brazilian and foreign authors, aside from those mentioned in the preceding topics.

The Brazilian art is mostly represented by landscapes, as well as for a significant set of brasiliana (artistic–historic registers about Brazil produced by foreign artists), with predominance of iconography related to Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro.

[24] The collection of European painting is characterized by a strong emphasis in genre works, specially palatial and armory-related scenes, ranging from 17th to 19th century, by artists as Enrique López Martínez, Tito Lessi and Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe.

[23] A 15th-century Venetian wood carving representing a black slave is the main highlight in the collection of sculptures, which also includes works by Giovanni Maria Benzoni, Henri Louis Levasseur, Abelardo da Hora and others, as well as a number of replicas of classic pieces proceeding from Romano Romanelli's workshop.

[9] The library collection was formed through acquisitions of private ensembles belonging to Brazilian academics and researchers, such as José Antônio Gonçalves de Mello Neto, Edson Nery da Fonseca and Jaime Cavalcanti Diniz.