A guide to Lisbon’s remarkable museums

Lisbon’s museums, which number more than 60 if you count even the tiniest of them, let you bathe in Portugal’s history and culture. Some lie along the quays of the lagoon-like Tagus estuary, others scatter the city’s hilly neighbourhoods.

History-minded visitors will, at some stage, find themselves at the water’s edge in Belém, the perfect spot to take the pulse of the Age of Discovery, a time when Portugal shaped the world. It was from here that the caravels set sail, and the district is now studded with the trappings of Empire, such as the Jerónimos monastery, as well as an eclectic array of museums, including the Berardo Collection and the horse-drawn carriages of the National Coach Museum. The exploration-inspired Museum of the Orient is also just a stroll along the Avenida da Índia.

While this trio all lie in modern, purpose-built buildings, several of Lisbon’s most alluring museums are housed in historic monuments as dazzling as the pieces on display. A case in point is the National Azulejo Museum, sensationally set in the stone-carved cloisters of the Madre de Deus convent, founded in 1509. Another is the National Museum of Ancient Art, which lies in the rooms of a palace adorned with Manueline flourishes. On the quirkier front, the bizarre façade of the 16th-century Casa dos Bicos, home to a museum on Nobel laureate José Saramago, often has architecture buffs scratching their heads.

However, Lisbon’s luck in hosting one of the world’s most mesmerising museums is down to one man’s munificence. In the 1890s, Armenian chemical engineer Calouste Gulbenkian founded a petroleum company on a hunch that oil would be the world’s main energy source in the next century. He became the world’s wealthiest man, which gave him the wherewithal to indulge his greatest passion: collecting the finest works of art ever created. During the Second World War he took refuge in neutral Portugal, eventually bequeathing his collection to a charitable foundation, stipulating that it be based in Lisbon.

Entry to many of Lisbon’s museums is included on the Lisboa Card. Some are free on Sundays (if crowded) after 2pm; most close on Mondays.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum opened 14 years after its benefactor’s death (Alamy)

Gulbenkian specified that his entire collection be displayed under one roof. The resulting museum opened in 1969 in a specially built concrete building rising out of landscaped water gardens.

The most obvious way to get around is chronologically, starting with the Egyptian and Greco-Roman rooms, then passing through the Islamic and Oriental galleries before moving on to European art. What makes the Gulbenkian one of the world’s most important art collections is that every piece in it was chosen not only as a superlative, but as a personal treasure.

Works of genius not to miss include the Lalique collection of Art Nouveau jewellery; pieces by Monet, Turner, Gainsborough and Rubens; and its collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts. One of the undoubted treasures is Jean-Antoine Houdon’s marble Diana statue, which runs with a grace that appears different from every angle; it used to be one of Catherine the Great’s most cherished possessions. Above all, save time for Rembrandt’s Figure of an Old Man – dignified and ineffably sad, his face seems to glow from within. Look out for guided tours on Mondays.

More information: gulbenkian.pt/museu/en

A ceramic exhibition inside the National Museum of Ancient Art (Shutterstock)

Portugal’s national museum is principally a repository of gold and silverwork, paintings, sculptures and jewellery by Portuguese artists from across the centuries. Yet it also houses one of the country’s finest collections of art from around Europe, including masterpieces by Hieronymus Bosch, Raphael and Holbein, as well as displays of ceramics, furniture and artefacts from Africa, Asia and the Americas, reflecting the cultural impact of Portugal’s Age of Discovery.

The MNAA, as it’s known, lies in the Palace of Alvor-Pombal in the smart Lapa area, built on, and from, the ruins of a monastery destroyed in the 1755 earthquake. It stands in gorgeous gardens overlooking the river Tagus, where the café makes an excellent recovery room after an exhaustive exploration, which can take half a day. Alternatively, a 60-minute highlights tour is helpfully suggested.

More information: museudearteantiga.pt

The chapels of Saint Anthony and Queen Leonor inside of the National Azulejo Museum (Shutterstock)

It is impossible to exaggerate the significance of the Grande Panorama de Lisboa, the centrepiece of a museum dedicated to the glazed tilework paintings (known as azulejo) that are a distinct Portuguese art form. This enormous cityscape covers most of a wall, and when viewed up close you can make out every spire, bridge and shipyard of Lisbon circa 1700, from when it dates. No other record exists in comparable detail of Portugal’s capital before it was devastated by the massive 1755 earthquake.

The Madre de Deus convent is the museum’s glorious host. Feast your eyes on the unparalleled collection of exquisite azulejos adorning the cloister walls, set around a fountained central courtyard. Each tile is painted individually but tessellated and intricately grouted to form portraits, still lifes, everyday scenes and extravagant panels depicting key moments in Portuguese history.

More information: museudoazulejo.gov.pt

This jewel of a museum, set in a revamped warehouse on the Alcântara district quayside, is a reminder of Portugal’s pervading influence on Asia, both in trade and colonisation, brought to life through fine collections of Indo-Portuguese artworks and antiques from China, Japan and Timor. foriente.pt

Casa dos Bicos, a striking mansion with a façade of spiky pyramids, is home to this intriguing little museum on Nobel laureate Saramago (1922–2010), covering his genre-defying novels and life, including his struggles against the Salazar dictatorship. josesaramago.org

Featuring hundreds of horse-drawn coaches and carriages from around the world, this one-of-a-kind museum spotlights an art form long forgotten in the automobile era. The collection chronicles their evolution from workaday transport to extravagant, gilded symbols of wealth and state power. museudoscoches.gov.pt/pt

A counterpoint to the adjacent Jerónimos monastery, Lisbon’s electrifying collection of contemporary art lies inside the ultra-modern Centro Cultural de Belém complex on the waterfront. Showstoppers include Picasso’s Femme dans un Fauteuil, Warhol’s portrait of Judy Garland, and Dali’s Lobster Telephone. berardocollection.com