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The African Museum was inaugurated in 1923 as a Colonial Museum at the Palazzo della Consulta with the institutional task of "giving  information on the annual production of our colonies and of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea and Somalia". It then became the recipient of collections and objects coming from the African continent. In 1935 it was set up in the current location in Via Aldrovandi. It was reopened in 1947 after a long period of closing. When the Ministry of Italian Africa was suppressed, the administration and deposit of the museum was entrusted to the Italian Institute for Africa (the current Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient). The Museum consisted of a library, annexed to the Institute’s library, a photographic section that is currently under reorganization, a collection of Ethiopian paintings, a collection of wooden sculptures, a collection of paintings, drawings, engravings, and sculptures of Italian artists operating in the ex colony. A first photographic reproduction and cataloging of this last collection has been done by SACS (Special Superintendency for Contemporary Art): it included about 350 paintings, 400 engravings, watercolors and prints, and 50 sculptures The collections are currently cataloged by section: there are paleontologic, prehistoric, archaeological, ethnographic, artistic, and applied art sections. Jewels, coins, handicrafts, excavation findings, and musical instruments, and figurative art works are exhibited.