Collection
The enormous collection that the L’Iber Museum houses is the result of a passion for miniature figurines by D. Álvaro Noguera, a dynamic and appreciated businessman from Valencia, who had a gran appreciation for history.
His collection was constantly growing, as he never stopped acquiring new pieces. This fervent status as a collector gave rise to more than a million pieces that the museum possesses, approximately, as artistic material on display, stored or being restored in our workshops.
It was in the 80s that D. Álvaro Noguera began having ideas about displaying his collection to the public, but his perfectionism kept delaying him from seeing it through. It wasn’t until 2007 when this collectors dream would be realized, with the opening to the public of L’Iber Museum of historical miniature soldiers. This museum constituted a whole moral and cultural legacy that a year after his death was honored by his son, Alejandro Noguera, current director of the L’Iber Museum.
At its inauguration, the museum had 1,000 square meters dedicated to 10 different rooms in whose showcases displayed around 50,000 pieces. Today, the number of rooms open to the public has almost doubled and the pieces displayed reach around 100,000. These figures convert the L’Iber museum into the first museum of historical miniature soldiers in the world, both for the exhibition area and the richness of the collection. Not long after its opening, this private initiative was one of the most visited museums of the Valencian community.
The Museum and the Foundation
L’Iber, Museum of historical miniature soldiers is a private initiative that is housed in the Palace of the Marquis of Malferit. It houses the largest collection of toy soldiers in the world, fruit of the passion and fervent collecting spirit of D. Álvaro Noguera.
The museum, along with its exhibition work, is a center of the dissemination of history, culture, art, and literature. To carry out this cultural purpose, the Museum is managed by the Fundación Libertas 7. It is a non-profit organization officially recognized as of public interest which also promotes other cultural and social activities with the objective of promoting toy collecting, specifically that of historical miniatures, knowledge of history and the conservation of ethnographic peculiarities such as applied arts or gastronomy. Alongside the L’Iber Museum, the foundation also manages the Museums library, store, and the Valencian Institute of Classical and Oriental Studies.
Objectives and Values
The collection of L’Iber, Museum of tin soldiers reproduces an impressive sequence of fragments of the military, political, social, economic and cultural history of humanity, from distant prehistory to the beginning of the third millennium. Thus, our pieces are converted into a transmission vehicle for history.
The ample variety of types, manufacturers, materials, and quality of our pieces makes the collection a model for lovers of historical miniatures.
Objectives
- Exposition and dissemination of the historical miniature collection that the museum houses and the promotion of the knowledge and collecting of historical miniature figures.
- Transmission of the history, culture, art, and literature through a variety of events.
- Promote the knowledge of the building, Palacio de Malferit and of the Mediterranean Gothic Architecture.