BBVA continues to roll out its exhibition programme, this time in the halls of the Historical Archive of the Basque Country in Bilbao, with a project organised in conjunction with the Basque Government’s Department of Culture and Linguistic Policy. The exhibition wishes to outline a narrative of the economic history of Vizcaya between 1857 and 1905, focusing primarily on a number of significant moments and their influence on the development of nineteenth-century Basque society and economy.

The show is divided into six sections, each one illustrated with a selection of documents, photographs, objects and artworks coming from the BBVA Historical Archive—the first historical archive of a private bank created in Spain in 1978—and the BBVA Collection, which already has 166 years of history to its credit. The material on exhibit offers a chronological overview starting with the origins of Banco de Bilbao, the later birth of Banco del Comercio and continuing until the foundation of Banco de Vizcaya, all fundamental moments for a proper understanding of economic activity in the Basque Country in the second half of the nineteenth century.