Museum Puri Lukisan

The white, tiered entrance gate of Museum Puri Lukisan marks the oldest art museum in Bali. In the nineteen fifties, the painter Rudolf Bonnet and the prince of Ubud, Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati, founded the museum to preserve local masterpieces. They grew worried that brilliant Balinese painters were selling their best work to tourists for cheap prices, causing the island to lose its artistic legacy. They bought those works back, creating a permanent home where the island’s own painters could study their predecessors.