The Casa-Museu Medeiros e Almeida is a house–museum in Lisbon, Portugal founded in 1970. It is located in the former residence of its founder António de Medeiros e Almeida (1895–1986).
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| Location | Lisbon, Portugal |
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| Coordinates | 38°43′18″N 09°08′57″W / 38.72167°N 9.14917°W |
| Type | House Museum |
| Owner | Fundação Medeiros e Almeida |
| Public transit access | Yes |
| Nearest parking | Yes |
| Website | www |
The collection
The museum has twenty-seven rooms and around two thousand works of art. Iincluding furniture, painting, sculpture, textiles, jewellery, ceramics, fans and sacred art. The object cover the century II BC to the 20th century.
The collection is characterized by a very eclectic taste, with four collections standing out: one of Portugal's most important clock collections, an important porcelain Chinese Ceramics, a large and unique silverware collection and a collection of decorative fans.
Highlights
Chinese Art:
- A set of Han (206 BC-AD 220) and Tang (618-790) dynasties mingqi burial vessels;
- Seven Ming (1368-1644) dynasty, early 16th-century, porcelain vessels for the Portuguese market, known as first orders;
- A Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795), c.1750-1760, marked imperial vase with auspicious decoration and the molded figures of two European tribute-bearers;
- Two Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722) nefrite chime stones (sonorous stones), dated 1717, belonging to an imperial musical set;
- A rare Kangxi period, late 17th century, monumental six-panel, birthday gift, Coromandel lacquer screen decorated with poems and an inscription;
Clocks and Watches:
- A mid-17th century Gdansk, amber hourglass, signed: Michael Scödelock fecit;
- A rare c.1675-1685, night clock by the English royal clockmaker, Edward East (1602-1696);
- 1700, longcase, grandfather, month clock by Thomas Tompion (1639-1713);
- A curious c.1720-1730, flintlock system, table alarm clock made to the German market by Godfrie Poy (active 1718-1753);
- An 1807 pocket watch, table, and carriage clock that belonged to French general Junot and later on to the Duke of Wellington, by the master horology Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823);
- A 1900 Grand Régulateur, ormolu mounted, grandfather clock by François Linke;
Furniture:
- Two Louis XIV ormolu-mounted tortoiseshell and engraved brass marquetry bureau Mazarin, c.1690, by French cabinet-maker André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732);
- A pair of rocaille commodes, 1720-1730, marked Antoine Criaerd (act. 1720-50);
- A “vernis-Martin” commode, 1745-1755, attb. to French cabinet-maker Pierre Roussel (1723-1782);
- A writing table (desk), 1854-1857, by the English cabinet-maker John Webb (1799-1880);
- A cartonnier desk, signed and dated 1892, by Joseph -Emmanuel. Zwiener (1849-c.1925);
- “Mars & Venus”An ormolu-mounted “Mars & Venus” cabinet signed and dated by the French cabinet-maker François Linke (1855-1935), made for the Universal Exhibition of Paris of 1900 signed and dated 1900;
- A Louis XV style, ormolu mounted console by French cabinet-maker François Linke (1855-1935), signed LF, circa 1900;
Painting:
- “The Halt” by Flemish painter Jan Brueghel (1568-1625);
- “The Tax Collector”, 1616, by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638);
- A set of 8 land and seascapes, 1623 to 1652, by the Dutch landscapist Jan van Goyen (1596-1656);
- “Old Man with a sword”, 1768, by the Italian master Gian-Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804);
- “Archimedes”, c.1630, attributed to Jose Ribera’s workshops (1588-1652);
- “Still Life”, 1643-1644, by the Dutch painter Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1684);
- “Queen Catarina of Bragança”, 1670, attributed to the British painter John Riley (1646-1691);
- “The Birth of Adonis“; “The Death of Adonis”, c.1720-30, by François Boucher (1703-1770);
- “Mrs. William Fitzroy”, 1801-1808, attributed to the English painter John Hoppner (1758-1810);
- “Amedée Berny d’Ouville”, 1830, signed and dated by the French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863);
The founder
António de Medeiros e Almeida was born in Lisbon on 18 September 1895. His parents were both originally from the Azores. After attending school in Lisbon, Medeiros e Almeida started taking a course in medicine at the University of Coimbra in 1916. At the age of 26, without having completed the course, he dropped out of university. At this stage there was nothing to indicate the important role that he would play in Portugal in the following years.[1][2]
A keen motoring enthusiast, who took part in races, he persuaded William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield who had founded Morris Motors in the United Kingdom to give him the concession to import Morris cars into Portugal. His powers of persuasion were considerable in that he got Morris to agree to supply the first consignment on credit. In addition to an outlet in Lisbon he had sales premises and repair shops in Porto, Coimbra and Viseu. Later, he became president in Portugal of the French car company, Citroën, which still manufactures in Portugal at the PSA Mangualde Plant.[1][2]
He was also a pioneer in commercial aviation, acquiring a significant share in Aero Portuguesa, Portugal's first airline, in 1948. He went on to become a founder and president of TAP Air Portugal and chairman of IATA, the International Air Transport Association. Not neglecting his roots in the Azores he became a partner in Bensaude & C.ª, Ltda, an important company in the Archipelago whose activities included shipping, fishing, shipyards, insurance, and agricultural products.[1][2]
Medeiros e Almeida played several important roles in World War II. He assisted Jewish refugees in Lisbon by using his connections to obtain passports for them and then giving them passage on cargo ships of his company, the Companhia Insular de Navegação. He was approached by Sir Ronald Campbell, the British ambassador, to facilitate negotiations between Winston Churchill and the Portuguese leader António Salazar on the establishment of a military base for allied forces in the Azores. After Salazar refused on the grounds that Portugal was neutral, he helped the Allies make use of facilities on the Azores during the War, being made a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by the British in 1947. In 1959, he joined with eleven other investors to fund the construction of the Hotel Ritz in Lisbon after Salazar decided that Lisbon lacked a suitable hotel for distinguished foreign visitors.[1][2]
The Foundation
On the 23 June 1924, Medeiros e Almeida married Margarida Pinto Basto. They moved into a house on Rua Mouzinho da Silveira in Lisbon and started to buy artworks to decorate their new residence. Their collection expanded rapidly after World War II as the post-war period provided a particularly good opportunity for collectors with money to enhance their collections as prices were low. The couple quickly became recognised as major art collectors.[1][2]
His wife died in 1971. The couple were childless, which is why they had decided to donate their property and collection to a foundation, the Medeiros e Almeida Foundation, which runs the museum. The idea of the House—Museum was to keep all of the collection together. In 1971 Medeiros e Almeida requested experts from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to carry out a first inventory of his collection. A final inventory would not be completed until after his death. Medeiros e Almeida directed the work of the foundation until his death on 12 February 1986. Aware that, in the absence of financial resources, the museum would find it difficult to survive without selling some of the contents, Medeiros e Almeida left in his will instructions as to how the foundation would survive. He arranged for his shares in all of his companies to be sold, with the resulting money being used to build a property close to the museum that should be rented out, with the rent being used to support the functioning of the museum. That arrangement continues to work satisfactorily to the present.[1][2]
The buildings
The building that houses the museum was built by a Lisbon lawyer, Augusto Vítor dos Santos, in 1896. In 1921, it was sold to Eduardo Guedes de Sousa who added the two upper floors. In 1927 it was sold to the Vatican to become the Apostolic Nunciature. Medeiros e Almeida and his wife purchased it in 1943, moving into it after extensive remodelling. At the beginning of the 1970s, when he had already been decided to leave the art collection to the Portuguese State, he used the garden to build a new wing to house part of that collection. This included a chapel to exhibit sacred art, a Louis XV Room (Piano Room) and a Louis XIV Room, as well as a winter garden to display glazed tiles and sculpture. Environments suitable for the items in the collection were created, using panelling and ceilings purchased for the purpose. Meanwhile, the couple moved next door to a house on Rua Rosa Araújo.[2][3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f "The Collector". Casa-Museu Medeiro e Almada. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g "António de Medeiros e Almeida - Breve biografia" (PDF). Casa-Museu Medeiros e Almada. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
- ^ "The House-Museum". Casa-Museu Medeiro e Almeida. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
