La Esquina / Mexican Popular Toy Museum

Published April 29, 2023

By Josemaría Moreno

In commemoration of Children’s Day, we decided to visit this iconic museum in San Miguel de Allende. This peculiar cultural space of our city was a pioneer in its genre and its folkloric heritage is invaluable for the artisan tradition of our country. It was inaugurated to exhibit the collection of more than 3,500 toys that teacher Angelica Tijerina had collected for much of her life.

La Esquina proposes a journey between the history and geography of the Mexican toy. Its collection now even houses participants of national competitions with houses, dolls, carts, instruments and belongings of Mexican culture and art, made with various materials representative of the areas where each tradition and each game is born. For many, touring the museum is turning to a childhood, adorned with toys that today are difficult to find. The museum has five thematically designed rooms through exceptional and colorful curatorship.

The first room specializes in weaving and embroidery and the dolls on display are classic and timeless. The second is a collection of carts and transport animals such as those that are already difficult to find in bazaars and craft shops. The third, as its name makes it clear, “the fair”, is a sample of masks and musical instruments to scale that, as in a mini-verse, exemplifies the playful and communal culture of our celebrations and colloquial parties. The fourth room deserves a special mention because it combines the current artisan production of different communities – especially in Guanajuato – and shows the winners of the National Mexican Popular Toy Contest: a sui-generis contest that the museum designed to give an exhibition window to our artisans and disseminate their work. The exercise is noble and remarkable and the results are beautiful. In the last room we can find the temporary exhibitions designed by the museum, a potpourri of figures and colors framed on the terraces of the building that have a placid view of the town and its surroundings.

Although the museum is not designed in playful terms that can involve the visitor, thinking especially of children – and perhaps the museum would do well to contemplate a new room in which reproductions of its toys would be available to the viewer to play with them and make the occasion more interactive – its objects on display may well arouse the curiosity of both children and adults. awakening reminiscences in this that can nourish the playful and folkloric imaginary of that.

We highly recommend a visit to this cultural space and elevate it as a bastion of memory and collective joy: a safe of games, traditions, colors and figures that shaped so many past generations and that today run the risk of getting lost among plastic figurines or electronic circuits in the palm of the hand.

The museum is located at Calle Núñez 40, Centro, and is open from Tuesday to Sunday.