Housed in a mansion in Palermo that was briefly a women's shelter run by the Eva Perón Foundation in the early 1950s, this museum tells the story of María Eva Duarte de Perón through her possessions, her political legacy, and her extraordinary grip on Argentine popular memory. The displays cover her childhood in the provinces, her rise through radio and film, her marriage to Juan Perón, her political activities on behalf of the working class (the descamisados), and her death from cancer in 1952 at age 33.
The costume collection is the highlight: Evita's clothes, many designed by Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain, demonstrate both her obsession with the image of a first lady and the particular political meaning she attached to dressing in a way that demonstrated Argentina's place among the great nations. The café in the garden is a good place to sit after the museum.