1st Edition

Collections, Exhibitions and Museums in Portugal and Its Empire From the 18th to the 20th century

Edited By Filipa Lowndes Vicente, Leonor de Oliveira Copyright 2025
    272 Pages 45 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Focusing on the period between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the late twentieth century, this edited volume examines the histories of objects, museums, exhibitions, and collections in Portugal or outside Portugal but representing Portugal, or related to it through colonial relationships.

    The book highlights the specificities of the Portuguese case, set against a globalised, transnational, and transcolonial context, and provides a precedent for future studies and a dialogue with equivalent studies related to other geographies. The diversity of the cultural, intellectual, and political contexts (imperial, colonial, monarchical, republican, authoritarian) offered by the Portuguese example allows for the exploration of a number of complex case-studies. Chapters study the artistic, collecting, and museological practices in Portugal and in the various geographical contexts of its colonial empire, with particular emphasis on the circulation and connectedness of objects, products, people, and ideas.

    The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies, intellectual and cultural history, and imperial and colonial history.

    Contents

     

    Lists of Figures

    List of Contributors

     

    Introduction    Mapping Visions: Collections, Exhibitions, and Museums Between Portugal and Empire, from the 18th to the 20th Century

                            Foteini Vlachou, Filipa Lowndes Vicente, and Leonor de Oliveira

     

    Part I: Artistic and Natural History Collections in the Eighteenth Century: Between Lisbon, Brazil, China, and India

     

    1. The Empire in Transition and History Painting from Lisbon to Brazil

    Foteini Vlachou

     

    2. Travelling and Collecting: Natural History in Brazil During the Enlightenment    

    Lorelai Kury

     

    3. The Painting Collections of the Dukes of Aveiro in the Eighteenth Century, with a Note on the Acquisitions of an English Gentleman

    Luís de Moura Sobral

     

    4. Asian Material Culture in the Estate of Alexandre Metelo de Sousa Meneses, Ambassador of King John V to China and President of the Overseas Council

    Maria João Ferreira and Miguel Metelo de Seixas

     

    Part II: Exhibiting Identities in the Portuguese Colonial Empire (1860–1999)

     

    5. Exhibitions in Goa: The Making of Visible Identities (1860–1952)

    Filipa Lowndes Vicente

     

    6. Creating a Portuguese Imperial Identity: Art Exhibitions in the Metropolis and in the African Colonies (1933–1974)

    Kathrin Raminger

     

    7. National Identity, Modernity, and Aspirations to Internationalisation in the 1950s: The Portuguese Fine Arts at International Exhibitions

    Leonor de Oliveira

     

    8. Museum-Making in Portuguese Macao: The Creation of the Luís de Camões Museum from Colonial to Post-colonial Times

    Patrícia de Sousa Melo

     

    Part III: The Displaying of Art and History in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

     

    9. Museums and the Art Reforms of the First Portuguese Republic (1910–1926)

    Joana Baião

     

    10. Heroes on Display: The (Re)Construction and Exhibition of the Tomb of the Legendary Hero Egas Moniz in Early Twentieth-Century Portugal

    Alicia Miguélez

     

    11. Anti-semite and Anti-modern Fractures in the Portugal of Salazar: The Case of Portrait Painter and Museum Director Eduardo Malta (1933–1965)

    Raquel Henriques da Silva

     

    12. “Worthy of Enabling and Support.” the Exhibitions of the Lisbon Buchholz Bookshop and Their Critical Reception in the Context of the Second World War

    Inês Fialho Brandão

     

    Index

    Biography

    Filipa Lowndes Vicente is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

    Leonor de Oliveira is a collaborating researcher at the Art History Institute of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities—Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (IHA-NOVA FCSH/ IN2PAST), Portugal.