The National Museum of Decorative Arts was created by royal decree of 1912, as the National Museum of Industrial Arts. The first collection, comprising about one thousand five hundred objects, was located in six rooms in an apartment at Sacramento Street. In 1932 it moved to its current premises in Calle Montalbán, a three-story mansion that had been erected by the Duchess of Santoña in the eighties of the nineteenth century and in 1909, had become a School Teacher. The state bought the building in 1941 and began work on upgrading and expansion that gave the appearance it has today. In this second phase of its history, the criteria of those responsible for the museum are geared towards research. In 1962, the building and collections were declared a historical artistic monument.
