Within these landmark buildings, Louisiana State Museums preserve, research, and exhibit artifacts from a permanent collection of nearly 500,000 objects. Highlights include major collections of Louisiana paintings and decorative arts from colonial times to the present; costumes and ephemera illustrating the history of Carnival in Louisiana; a globally recognized collection of musical instruments, recordings, sheet music, and photographs illustrating the history of New Orleans jazz and Louisiana music; and an extensive document archive housed at the Louisiana Historical Center, which includes comprehensive judicial and civil records of French and Spanish colonial rule from 1718 to 1803.