National Museum Soares dos Reis
Encyclopedia
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, is one of the most renowned Portuguese museums.
The museum Soares dos Reis, founded in 1833, is Portugal's first national museum. It displays one of the finest collections of Portuguese art, in particular a gallery of works by Portuguese sculptor António Soares dos Reis
António Soares dos Reis
António Soares dos Reis was a Portuguese sculptor.-Studies:He first studied at the Portuense Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in sculpture in 1867. He studied at the Fine Arts Imperial School of Paris, from 1867 to 1870, where he achieved several prizes, and in Rome...
, after whom the museum is named.
History
The museum was founded in 1833 as Museum Portuense by King Peter IV. Initially it was housed in the St Anthony Convent in the centre of Porto and its exhibits consisted of religious art confiscated from convents and works of art from the absolutistsAbsolutism (European history)
Absolutism or The Age of Absolutism is a historiographical term used to describe a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites...
, followers of Miguel I of Portugal, who had struggled against Peter IV a year before. During the 19th century the museum made several acquisions that are still the main nucleus of the collection. In 1911 the museum was named Soares dos Reis in honour of the celebrated Porto sculptor.
In 1942 the museum was transferred from the centre of the city to the old Carrancas Palace, which greatly improved the conditions for the storage and exhibition of the collections. Between 1992 and 2001 the museum was expanded and modernised under a project by architect Fernando Távora
Fernando Távora
Fernando Luís Cardoso de Meneses de Tavares e Távora, simply known as Fernando Távora , was a renowned Portuguese architect and professor....
.
Carrancas Palace
The palace where the museum is currently housed was built after 1795 as home and factory for the Moraes e Castro family. The project is attributed to Joaquim da Costa Lima Sampaio, and architect who had previously worked on the building of the Hospital of St Anthony and the English Trading Post (FeitoriaFactory (trading post)
Factory was the English term for the trading posts system originally established by Europeans in foreign territories, first within different states of medieval Europe, and later in their colonial possessions...
Inglesa), which were Neo-Palladian
Palladian architecture
Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...
buildings designed by English architects based in Porto. This influence explains the style of Carrancas Palace, which follows the Neoclassical style
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
that characterised late 18th and 19th-century architecture in Porto. The interior of the palace was decorated with stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
work attributed to the Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
Luis Chiari as well as wall paintings.
During the Peninsular War
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
, the Carrancas Palace was sequentially used as residence by General Soult, headquarters for the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
and residence for General Beresford
William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford
General William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, 1st Marquis of Campo Maior, GCB, GCH, GCTE, PC , was a British soldier and politician...
. During the Siege of Porto
Liberal Wars
The Liberal Wars, also known as the Portuguese Civil War, the War of the Two Brothers, or Miguelite War, was a war between progressive constitutionalists and authoritarian absolutists in Portugal over royal succession that lasted from 1828 to 1834...
(1832), King Peter IV used the palace as headquarters for four months.
In 1861, King Peter V bought the palace and turned it into the official residence of the Portuguese monarchs in Porto. It was kept in this condition until the end of the monarchy, in 1910. In 1942 the National Museum Soares dos Reis was inaugurated in the Carrancas Palace.
Collections
The museum has a vast collection mainly focused on Portuguese art of the 19th and 20th centuries, including painting, sculpture, furniture, metalwork and ceramics. Artists represented include painters Domingos SequeiraDomingos Sequeira
Domingos António de Sequeira , was a Portuguese painter.-Biography:He was born in Belém, Lisbon, into a modest family. He later changed his family name from Espírito Santo to the more aristocratic Sequeira...
, Vieira Portuense
Vieira Portuense
Francisco Vieira de Matos , who choose the artistic name of Vieira Portuense, was a Portuguese painter, one of the introducers of Neoclassicism in Portuguese painting. He was, in the neoclassical style, one of the two great Portuguese painters of his generation, with Domingos Sequeira.He first...
, Augusto Roquemont, Miguel Ângelo Lupi
Miguel Ângelo Lupi
Miguel Ângelo Lupi was a Portuguese Romantic painter. He was a professor of historical painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lisbon....
, António Carvalho de Silva Porto, Marques de Oliveira
João Marques de Oliveira
João Marques de Oliveira was a Portuguese naturalist painter.He studied in the Academy of Fine Arts in Porto and in 1873 travelled to France with is colleague António Silva Porto, where they studied with academical painters Adolphe Yvon and Alexandre Cabanel. They became familiar with the French...
, Henrique Pousão
Henrique Pousão
Henrique César de Araújo Pousão was a Portuguese painter.- Life :Henrique Pousão was the son of a judge, from a wealthy family of Alentejo. His early talent manifested at the age of ten, when he copied a portrait of Rubens...
, Aurélia de Souza
Aurélia de Souza
Aurélia de Souza was a Portuguese painter.She was born in Valparaíso, Chile. Her parents were emigrants in Brazil and Chile, but they moved back to Porto, Portugal, in 1869. She studyed at the Fine-Arts Academy of Porto, since 1893, where she was a pupil of João Marques de Oliveira, who greatly...
, Dórdio Gomes, Júlio Resende and sculptors Soares do Reis
António Soares dos Reis
António Soares dos Reis was a Portuguese sculptor.-Studies:He first studied at the Portuense Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in sculpture in 1867. He studied at the Fine Arts Imperial School of Paris, from 1867 to 1870, where he achieved several prizes, and in Rome...
, Augusto Santo, António Teixeira Lopes
António Teixeira Lopes
António Teixeira Lopes was a Portuguese sculptor.Teixeira Lopes was the son of sculptor José Joaquim Teixeira Lopes and started learning his art in his father's workshop...
, Rodolfo Pinto do Couto and many others.