Inspired by the sculpture and two preparatory drawings of Firmino, by António Soares dos Reis and belonging to the Museum’s collection, around two dozen artists responded to the call to take part in the multi-year ‘’Affinities‘’ project competition.

The creative proposals are now on display at the Soares dos Reis National Museum, in an exhibition that lasts until 16 November, when the name of the winner will be announced.

The ‘Afinidades’ project is being developed by the Soares dos Reis National Museum, in partnership with the Quarteirão Criativo Association, with the patronage of the Super Bock Group and the support of the Dr José de Figueiredo Circle – Friends of the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

On the exhibition are objects made by jewellers and artists from different disciplinary areas, represented in the Bombarda Quarter: Ana Pina, Andreia Reimão, Benedetta Grasso, Carla Faro Barros, Diogo Dalloz, Joana Santos, Luís Mendonça, Luma Boêta, Margarida Valente, Maria João Portal, Mina Gallos, Monica Faverio, Noemí Díaz Patiño, Paula Castro, Paulo Azevedo, Sílvia Pinto Costa, Susana Barbosa and Telma Pinto de Oliveira.

The proposals are being voted on by visitors to the exhibition and by a jury, through which a winning piece will be chosen and included in the Museum Shop.

See the proposals in the competition here.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum is on the list of the most searched Portuguese museums online, topping the table in the north and only beaten by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the National Tile Museum and the National Museum of Ancient Art.

According to the survey carried out by Preply, an international language-learning platform, the three most popular museums online are located in Lisbon, while the Soares dos Reis National Museum, in Porto, came fourth, followed by the Navy Museum; the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology; the National Costume Museum; the Carris Museum; the Royal Treasury Museum and the National Museum of Natural History and Science, all located in Lisbon.

Internet searches for museums in Portugal increased by 50 per cent in 2023. Demand for specific exhibitions and installations has also been outstanding, with Preply indicating that the highlight was the search for ‘interactive experiences such as “Dalí: Cybernetics” and “Frida Kahlo, the Immersive Biography”’.

Preply’s research also sought to find out which foreign museums the Portuguese search for most on the internet and concluded that the Louvre Museum in Paris leads the searches, followed by the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Orsay Museum, also in Paris, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Officially presented on 13 April 2023, when the Soares dos Reis National Museum fully reopened, the museum’s official website has so far totalled 127,000 users, with more than 423,000 page views and more than 1 million registered events.

The 11 exhibitions – spread across various centres in the region – focus mainly on Portuguese territory, with an emphasis on Lamego and the Varosa Valley. In addition to the exhibitions, an artist’s residency, a conference, talks with the authors, a photography competition on the territory and other events in the programme will contribute to thinking about the landscape and the place of the human.

Lamego and Varosa Valley Photography Biennial
Opening: 20 July 2024

Curated by: Manuela Matos Monteiro and João Lafuente

Authors: Duarte Belo | José Zagallo Ilharco | Luís Quinta | Manuel Valente Alves | Manuela Matos Monteiro and João Lafuente | Álvaro Domingues | Adelino Marques | Augusto Lemos and Conceição Magalhães | Alexandre Delmar | international collective

Photo Credits José Zagalo Ilharco @Private Collection

From 1976 to 1980, the Contemporary Art Centre promoted around 100 exhibitions and various cultural activities. Alberto Carneiro, Ângelo de Sousa, Álvaro Lapa, Júlio Pomar, Emília Nadal, Eduardo Nery, among many others, showed their artworks in anthological form for the first time in Porto.

The intense dynamism of the programme was only possible thanks to the establishment of partnerships with embassies, foreign cultural institutes and institutions, which made it possible to present important contemporary art exhibitions on national and international tour in Porto.

Curated by Miguel von Hafe Pérez, the exhibition ‘Centro de Arte Contemporânea – 50 years, Making Art Democratic’ revisits the story of this primordial adventure in the Portuguese institutional context, recreating some of its exhibition moments and bringing to light rarely seen graphic documents.

As part of the official programme for the 50th Anniversary of 25 April, the exhibition will be on display at the Soares dos Reis National Museum until the end of 2024, with the patronage support of BPI and ‘la Caixa’ Foundation, and the institutional support of Círculo Dr. José de Figueiredo – Friends of the Museum.

The main players will be health and cultural mediation professionals, but the academic community and civil society are also invited to this joint reflection on art and health. The 1st National Meeting | Cultural Prescription – Art, Well-being and Inclusion will take place on 19 and 20 July at the Rectory of the University of Porto and the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

What do we expect from Cultural Prescription is the theme of the meeting’s inaugural session, scheduled for 10 am on Friday 19th in the Rectory’s Great Hall. The topic will be answered by Fátima Vieira, Vice-Rector for Culture and Museums at Porto University, followed by a presentation of concrete experiences in Portugal.

One of the highlights of the morning will be the presentation by lecturers from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the new Transversal and Transferable Competences Curriculum Unit on Cultural Prescription, which will be on offer to all students at the University of Porto from the next academic year, and which will cross different disciplinary areas.

Starting at 2 pm, researcher Anita Jensen, from Lund University (Sweden), will share case study results and show how the arts can effectively be integrated into the areas of health and social care, impacting the quality of life of participants and promoting a greater connection between the social, health and general well-being dimensions.

To reflect on the role of art in the training of health professionals, there will be a round table from 3pm with: João Luís Barreto Guimarães, doctor, poet and lecturer at the Abel Salazar Biomedical Sciences Institute (ICBAS), where he teaches ‘Introduction to Poetry’; Luís Campos, President of the Portuguese Council for Health and the Environment; Rui Amaral Mendes, lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine of U.Porto and responsible for the ‘Poetry and Photography in Medicine’ course unit; and Ana Zão, doctor, pianist and Regent of the ‘Medicine, Music and the Mind’ course unit at ICBAS.

Cultural Mediation will be the topic to be discussed by Alice Semedo and Hugo Barreira, lecturers and researchers at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto; Lúcia Matos, lecturer, researcher and director of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, and Virgínia Gomes, coordinator of the EU no musEU project for people with Alzheimer’s disease and their carers.

This first day of the event will culminate at 5.30 pm with the presentation of the Cultural Prescription Consortium which, among other measures, will enable the training of professionals who are already in the field (doctors, psychologists, artists and cultural mediators). Participants will include Jorge Sobrado, vice-president for Culture and Heritage at the Northern Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-N); António Ponte, director of the Soares dos Reis National Museum; Flávio Vieira, director of the Alberto Sampaio Museum; Teresa Albuquerque, director of Casa Mateus; and Fátima Vieira, vice-rector for Culture and Museums at the University of Porto.

On 20 July, the meeting will take place at the Soares dos Reis National Museum. Starting at 10 am, various activities are planned, from a guided tour ‘Do beijo à Saudade’ (From Kissing to Homesickness) to a dynamic about ‘Places of Empathy’.

The Cultural Prescription project was developed by the University of Porto’s Culture Unit.

Recently awarded the Museum of the Year 2024 Prize by the Portuguese Museology Association, the Soares dos Reis National Museum attracted around 86,000 visitors in its first year after reopening (60% domestic and 40% foreign), held eight temporary exhibitions and held around 700 mediation activities (visits, workshops, commented sessions, among others).

‘It’s been a constant challenge, with intense and diverse activity that has helped to solidify the reputation of the Soares dos Reis National Museum. The successive awards recognise the work we’ve done, creating more responsibility for the future,’ says António Ponte.

The Travellers’ Choice Award is given to those who receive a high volume of reviews and opinions that exceed the expectations of the Tripadvisor Community over 12 months, taking into account the quality, quantity and least antiquity of the reviews. The attractions’ length of stay on Tripadvisor and position in the Popularity Index ranking are also taken into account.

The Catalogue Raisonné of Aurélia de Souza (1866-1922) is one of the activities carried out as part of the commemoration of the centenary of her death, which also included the exhibitions Aurélia de Souza 1866-1922 Life and Secret and Aurélia de Souza AS CASAS, as well as an international congress whose proceedings will be published later this year.

The survey and study of Aurélia’s complete oeuvre was carried out over the last three years by a team made up of Conservator Ana Paula Machado, Conservator-Restorer Maria Aguiar, and Art Historians Raquel Henriques da Silva and Elena Komissarova, based at the Soares dos Reis National Museum and the Art History Institute of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences/New University of Lisbon.

The work was also supported by the Centre for Research in Science and Technology of the Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University, Porto City Council, Matosinhos City Council, the University of Porto, HERCULES Laboratory – University of Évora, the National Civil Engineering Laboratory, the José de Figueiredo Laboratory, and numerous private collectors, especially the painter’s family, and the project’s patron, the Millennium bcp Foundation.

‘Since the end of the 18th century, Camões and some of the themes of Os Lusíadas have been increasingly publicised internationally, contextualised in a pre-romantic culture. The poet’s adventurous life itself became a literary and artistic motif. It is in this context that Francisco Vieira Portuense made a series of compositions to illustrate each of the poem’s, in a project for a great edition. This publication would never be published, but at the beginning of 1817 a careful and extensively illustrated monumental edition of Os Lusíadas appeared in France, on the initiative of the Morgado de Mateus.

During these same years, several Portuguese creators, all living abroad and almost simultaneously, dedicated celebratory works to Camões: Domingos Bomtempo dedicated a Requiem Mass to him in 1817, and Almeida Garrett composed an extensive poem, published in 1825. Coincidentally, in 1824, Domingos Sequeira presented the painting ‘The Death of Camões’ at the Paris Salon, which he then sent to Rio de Janeiro, offering it to the recent emperor Pedro I (Pedro IV of Portugal). The painting was later lost, but there is a set of preparatory drawings that evoke the poet in the last moments of his life, receiving the terrible news of D. Sebastião’s defeat at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir. ‘At least I die with the country!’ he would exclaim.

The set of objects on display in the temporary exhibition marks the beginning of romanticism in Portuguese art, which was committed to celebrating national history and its heroes. And Camonian themes, including those of the poet’s last moments, continued to be reflected in by Portuguese and European painters throughout the 19th century’.

In Porto, he also attended the studio of João Augusto Ribeiro, a painter from Trás-os-Montes, who, in addition to painting classes, sparked his interests in literature, history and philosophy. He was also a pensioner in Rome on a scholarship sponsored by the Viscount of São João da Pesqueira.

A painter, architect and diplomat, Raul Maria Pereira was a highly regarded figure in Peru and Ecuador, where he moved in 1908 at the invitation of the director of that city’s School of Fine Arts to teach there.

He had a long career as an architect in that city and in Lima, Peru, where he moved in 1917, working on numerous projects for public buildings, alongside his career as a portrait painter. In the 1920s, he was Consul and Consul General of Portugal in Peru.

The programme to commemorate King Pedro IV’s Day begins at 6.30pm with the screening of the short film ‘A nossa arte a espreitar para o infinito’ (Our art peering into infinity), an animation film made by third-year students from the Art School of the Porto Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of Anilupa – Associação de Ludotecas do Porto, as part of the Porto City Council’s Porto de Crianças programme.

At 7pm, there will be a talk by Augusto Moutinho Borges and António Pereira de Lacerda on ‘The Heart of D. Pedro given to the City of Porto by the Count of Campanhã’, and at 7.30pm, there will be a presentation of the work ‘Amélia de Leuchtenberg, Empress of Brazil, Duchess of Bragança’, by Cláudia Thomé Witte.

The first room of the Soares dos Reis National Museum’s long-term exhibition shows, in rotation, elements of the uniforms worn by King Pedro during the civil war. The museum keeps the dolman, the waistcoat, the cap, the cocked hat, the sword, the lanyard, the boldrié (a belt with a talim for suspending a sword), the eyeglass and the map holder.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum has its origins in the Museum of Paintings and Prints and other Fine Arts objects, created in 1833 by Pedro IV of Portugal, the first Emperor of Brazil, to safeguard the assets sequestered from the absolutists and convents abandoned during the Portuguese Civil War.

The AVEMUS project proposes the study and recovery of these musical scores, through the complete transcription and critical edition of the works from Porto’s female Benedictine monastery, as well as the presentation of papers at congresses and the publication of scientific articles, the holding of a symposium, the production of a record album with a selection of works from the musical corpus dealt with by the project, the organisation of concerts and a themed exhibition.

By publicising Porto’s remarkable 18th and 19th-century convent music, this project aims to bring the city’s inhabitants and visitors – present and future – closer to its extraordinary intangible heritage.

Ana Pina, Andreia Reimão, Benedetta Grasso, Carla Faro Barros, Diogo Dalloz, Joana Santos, Luís Mendonça, Luma Boêta, Margarida Valente, Maria João Portal, Mina Gallos, Monica Faverio, Noemí Díaz Patiño, Paula Castro, Paulo Azevedo, Sílvia Pinto Costa, Susana Barbosa and Telma Pinto de Oliveira, are the authors of the proposals that will be voted on by visitors to the exhibition and by a jury, through which a winning piece will be chosen and integrated into the Museum Shop.

Coinciding with the Museum’s usual celebration of Neighbour’s Day, this initiative reinforces the aim of strengthening ties with the surrounding community and reinforcing a sense of belonging, bringing together residents and representatives of commercial spaces and services located in the Rua D. Manuel II, Rua do Rosário, Rua Miguel Bombarda and Rua Adolfo Casais Monteiro blocks.

On the other hand, the opening of the exhibition ‘Afinidades na Joalharia Contemporânea’ (Affinities in Contemporary Jewellery) also takes place on the day of the Simultaneous Inaugurations in the Bombarda Quarter, so the whole community is invited to take part in this inaugural moment. An unprecedented project designed for a cycle of five editions, with annual themes, consisting of exhibitions, workshops and talks that explore moments of harmony, empathy and similarity between the culture of the creative community of Quarteirão Bombarda and the history and collection of the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

As one of the organisations participating in the testing of indicators for this innovative platform, the Soares dos Reis National Museum held its first internal working meeting this week to present the objectives and methodologies to be adopted for the implementation and validation of the objectives set out in the Charter of Principles of the Commitment to Social Impact of Cultural Organisations.

The CISOC corresponds to the formulation of a public policy measure in the 2019-2024 Strategic Plan of the National Arts Plan, as part of the Cultural Policy axis and the Impact and Sustainability Programme.

The actions of cultural organisations generate social impacts that can respond to needs, change and benefit society. Impacts expand cultural participation, promote civic connections, strengthen knowledge, reinforce links with the education system and contribute to change. However, the assessment of social impact in cultural organisations is still insufficient, which is why the CISOC platform was developed precisely to address the lack of management tools to support the design of strategies based on credible and reliable indicators and data.

Historic vehicles are part of the intangible cultural heritage, symbolising the historical evolution of mobility in Portuguese society and representing the freedom of movement granted to all citizens. The ACP’s activities at the Rainha D. Amélia Velodrome will therefore be a way of enhancing, boosting and attracting new visitors to the Museum.

In 1894, when the bicycle was becoming an urban social phenomenon, King Carlos – an honorary member of the Automobile Club of Portugal – authorised the Real Velo Clube to build a track for cyclists in the backyard of his palace, today the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

Inaugurated that same year, on 29 June, the Velodrome, of which there are still significant remains, responded to the growing enthusiasm for cycling among Porto’s elite at the end of the 19th century. The velodrome was named after the wife of King Carlos I: Queen Dona Amélia.

About António Soares dos Reis

Patron of the Museum since 1911, António Soares dos Reis, considered one of the greatest Portuguese sculptors of the 19th century, was born on 14 October 1847 in Santo Ovídio, in the parish of Mafamude, in the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia.

At just 14 years old, he enrolled at the Academia Portuense de Belas Artes, where – during his studies – he won several prizes and honours. In just a few years he had completed the course, winning 1st prize in drawing, architecture and sculpture.

At the age of 20, he became a state pensioner abroad. Between 1867 and 1870, Soares dos Reis stayed in Paris as a student, receiving lessons from Jouffroy, Yvon and Taine. In Paris, he received several prizes for his artwork.

After a brief stay in Portugal, in 1871 he left for Rome, a decisive stage in his education. It was in Rome that he began work on O Desterrado (The Exiled) (1872), an oeuvre of classical inspiration, an essay in the transition to naturalism, which was awarded a prize at the General Fine Arts Exhibition in Madrid in 1881.

Returning to Porto in 1873 to devote himself to his artistic career, Soares dos Reis collaborated with publications and chaired the Centro Artístico Portuense. From 1881, he taught sculpture at the Porto School of Fine Arts, although he disagreed with the organisation of the teaching.

Soares dos Reis was admired by his contemporaries, received commissions, took part in competitions and exhibitions and designed public monuments. Illness and dissatisfaction led him to commit suicide in his studio in 1889.

Maria Filomena Molder is Emeritus Professor of Aesthetics at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Member of the Institute of Philosophy of Language (IFILNOVA). Visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1995 and 2011). Member of the Scientific Council of the Collège International de Philosophie, Paris (2003-2009). She writes about problems of aesthetics, as problems of knowledge and language, for philosophy, literature and art magazines.

The Siza Baroque Programme runs throughout 2024 with the participation of the project’s researchers and their consultants. It also includes an exhibition at the Soares dos Reis National Museum and a closing concert, with a ‘baroque-contemporary’ composition (like Siza’s work), at the Clérigos de Nasoni.

Scientific Research and Technological Development Project on the Architecture of Álvaro Siza Vieira FCT: SIZA/CPT/0021/2019

Funded by:

Foundation for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education; Ministry of Culture; Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto; Centre for Architecture and Urbanism Studies.

Supported by:

Soares dos Reis National Museum; Serralves Foundation; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; CCA; Drawing Matter; Casa da Arquitectura; Marques da Silva Foundation, Irmandade dos Clérigos and Conservatório de Música do Porto.

Last year, PortoBeerFest was voted one of the 10 best non-music festivals on the Iberian Peninsula in the Iberian Festival Awards. This year, the organisation has prepared the venue, as usual, so that the visiting user’s experience has even more parameters of quality and enjoyment of the event. PortoBeerFest has therefore developed a model for implementing good environmental practices and ecological sustainability, recycling, waste treatment and regeneration, mobility and accessibility to the venue with partners from the city.

In the complementary route to the venue, and throughout the city of Porto and Matosinhos, in the bars and restaurants taking part, the brewers in this edition will present their trends in tastings, mini events and talks, in coordination with PortoBeerFest.

From 1976 to 1980, the Contemporary Art Centre promoted around 100 exhibitions and various cultural activities. Alberto Carneiro, Ângelo de Sousa, Álvaro Lapa, Júlio Pomar, Emília Nadal, Eduardo Nery, among many others, showed their artworks in anthological form for the first time in Porto.

The intense dynamism of the programme was only possible thanks to the establishment of partnerships with embassies, foreign cultural institutes and institutions, which made it possible to present important contemporary art exhibitions on national and international tour in Porto.

Curated by Miguel von Hafe Pérez, the exhibition ‘Centro de Arte Contemporânea – 50 years, Making Art Democratic’ revisits the story of this primordial adventure in the Portuguese institutional context, recreating some of its exhibition moments and bringing to light rarely seen graphic documents.

As part of the official programme for the 50th Anniversary of 25 April, the exhibition will be on display at the Soares dos Reis National Museum until the end of 2024, with the patronage support of BPI and ‘la Caixa’ Foundation, and the institutional support of Círculo Dr. José de Figueiredo – Friends of the Museum.

Joining this informal network of museums and cultural institutions, which around the world will reinforce the importance of valuing cultural heritage, the Soares dos Reis National Museum will share content on its Instagram account related not only to the June programme – associating the opening of the temporary exhibition ‘Centro de Arte Contemporânea – Making Art Democratic’ and the commented session of the object of the month with Museum Week 2024 – but also with artworks and objects from its collection, projecting the Museum’s activity internationally.

The planned calendar of talks includes sub-themes related to the backstage of cultural spaces, biodiversity, selfies in nature, water and green spaces in cities.

MuseumWeek was launched for the first time in 2014 and has been held every year since with the institutional support of UNESCO. In last year’s edition, the content posted on social media led to the collective sharing of around 77,000 hastags, with a very high global reach, especially in countries like France and the United States of America.

As this is an award among peers, the Museum of the Year Award ‘acquires even greater significance and relevance, reflecting the recognition of the work that has been carried out over the last few years, especially after the complete reopening of the Museum’.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum was also awarded the Partnership Prize for the Art and Health Programme, developed in partnership with the University Hospital Centre of Porto, with the patronage of the António Manuel da Mota Foundation. This programme is aimed at the community of users, companions, carers and health professionals of one of the most populous entities in the Museum’s ‘neighbouring’ territory: the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto, made up of Hospital Santo António; Centro Materno Infantil do Norte Albino Aroso; Centro de Genética Médica Jacinto de Magalhães, Centro Integrado de Cirurgia de Ambulatório and Hospital Magalhães Lemos.

Bringing together the most important collection of 19th-century-Portuguese art, the renovated long-term exhibition at the Soares dos Reis National Museum, which opened to the public on 13 April 2023, was built in accordance with the latest standards of accessibility and museum inclusion.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum assumes itself as a plural space for sharing identity and belonging through art and culture, promoting reflection, creativity and contemporary critical thinking based on the collections it holds, conserves, researches and communicates.

The Velodrome included ancillary buildings, an elegant wooden tribune for about 700 people (other sources say 400 people), housing the royal box in the centre. Underneath the tribune were around 50 cabins rented by members to store their clothes, bicycles, etc. A grandstand with three tiers of seats, with a capacity of 1,000, was located at the top of one of the ramps. There was also an open space for pedestrians. Opposite was a start-finish stand with a board identifying the laps to be travelled. In the same place, on the upper floor, was the jury box. Between the tribunes and the pedestrian seating, the Velodrome’s spectator capacity was approximately 2,500 to 3,000. The construction of the Velodrome and tribune was directed by partner José Isidoro de Campos.

Numerous reports of races and events taking place there can be found, such as a charity event in favour of a children’s dispensary, sponsored by Queen Amélia.

After the establishment of the Republic, the Velodrome was inactive. In 1915 it reappeared under the name Velo-Club do Porto and continued to operate there until the 1930s. With the setting up of the Soares dos Rei National Museum in 1940, the space was transformed into an archaeological garden. The refurbishment of the building in 2001 restored the memory of the old Velodrome, with the construction of the two semicircles on the tops that enclosed the track.

‘Descent from the Cross’, a sacred painting dating from 1827, is part of a group of four late paintings by Domingos Sequeira, executed in Rome, where the artist died in 1837.

Domingos Sequeira is considered to be the most talented and original Portuguese painter of his time, having played a fundamental role in the development of Portuguese art in the early 19th century.

The meeting will be used to present the ‘Case Study on the Luxury Footwear Sector’, by international consultancy Ernest&Young, and the study ‘New and Old Markets: a new approach’, by the Porto Catholic University Research Centre.

There will also be a debate on the perspectives of four different organisations. Ana Maria Vasconcelos, from Belcinto, Fátima Oliveira, from Mariano Shoes, João Esteves, from DiVERGE, and Paulo Martins, from Ambitious, will discuss the businesses of the future’.

The meeting is conceived in a context in which Cultural Heritage is taking on visibility as a tool and/or process for the defence, promotion and development of Human Rights, but also as an instrument for limiting, impeding or violating them. Through a programme that brings together heritage actors, researchers, international relations agents and members of civil society, the event aims to discuss the theme, its relevance and its emergence on the contemporary international scene.

Participation is free and open to the academic community, the heritage sector and civil society.

The 1st International Meeting on Cultural Heritage and Human Rights is part of Inês de Carvalho Costa’s PhD project in Heritage Studies – specialising in Art History.

The project is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, 2021.07318.BD, https://doi.org/10.54499/2021.07318.BD) and the Transdisciplinary Research Centre “Culture, Space and Memory” (CITCEM, Porto, Portugal), with the collaboration of the Cultural Heritage Laboratory of the Juiz de Fora Federal University (LAPA/UFJF, MG, Brazil). The scientific supervision of the project is the responsibility of Professor Maria Leonor Botelho (CITCEM-FLUP/DCTP, Porto, Portugal) and Professor Rodrigo Christofoletti (Federal University of Juiz de Fora, UFJF, MG, Brazil).

In Paris, he continued his activity as a caricaturist, even exhibiting at the Salon des Humoristes and collaborating with specialised newspapers. He began painting around 1913, encouraged by friends who offered him canvases, paints and brushes. His first model was Diogo de Macedo and portraiture was one of the genres he practised most.

Armando de Basto is represented in the collection of the Soares dos Reis National Museum by nine paintings, some of which are on the long-term exhibition.

Image Credits: Oil on canvas Self-portrait by Armando Basto, 1917. @Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis

Bibliographic source

In the Camellia Garden, located in the centre of the building and accessed from the riding arena, you can see various species of Camellia.

In the Rainha D. Amélia Velodrome Garden, which is the result of a landscaping project by the architect Fernando Távora, you can see a significant part of the Lapidary collection, as well as material memories of the Rainha D. Amélia Velodrome, inaugurated in 1894.

The Carrancas Palace began to be built in 1795. Its design is attributed to the architect Joaquim da Costa Lima Sampaio, who worked on the construction of the Hospital de Santo António, by the Englishman John Carr, and the Feitoria Inglesa, by John Whitehead.

The project divided the property into three main areas: a residence, a garden inside the building and a cultivation area at the back. In 1861, the Carrancas Palace was acquired by King Pedro V to become the official residence of the royal family during their visits to the north of the country and was renovated.

In 1915, it was donated to Misericórdia through the will of King Manuel II, who wanted to build a hospital there, but this never materialised. Later, the State bought the palace to house the Soares dos Reis National Museum, which had been founded in 1833 and was housed in the Santo António Convent, now the Porto Municipal Public Library.

The Carrancas Palace was once again adapted for its new function and in 1940 the Soares dos Reis National Museum, the oldest public art museum in Portugal, was inaugurated here.

Between 1992 and 2001, the building underwent a series of major refurbishments by architect Fernando Távora. Outside there is a patio with pink walls and tiles that gives way to a garden sheltered by the building’s walls. The green space with lawns gives full prominence to the camellias.

The exhibition focuses on six periods of tension, namely 1383-85, 1640, 1820, 1836, 1910 and 1974, to tell stories of resistance and change, the reinvention of identity values, human rights and freedom.

Based on the stories of specific characters on the ground where the actions took place, the exhibition explores the transformations in the historical political, social and cultural landscape that have unfolded in Lisbon.

Curated by Daniel Alves, the exhibition features around 135 pieces from the Museum of Lisbon’s collection and more than 40 external institutions, including the Soares dos Reis National Museum, providing a Snuff-box, an engraving of Dom Miguel (pictured) and the oil on canvas ‘Prison of the Duchess of Mantua’.