Thanks to Constancio Franco's (1842–1917) initiative, the largest portrait collection painted in Colombia during the 19th century was produced in the late 1870s. This series of paintings of Independence heroes has been studied as a pedagogical tool for the formation of citizens. Starting from that assumption, this paper studies the collection's acquisition process by the state, and the effects of its incorporation into the National Museum of Colombia's collection, with the purpose of understanding the most important Colombian iconographic undertaking of the 19th century.