Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

Museum · Avenidas NovasLisbon,Portugal

One oil magnate's collection in a purpose-built Lisbon park pavilion, running from Egyptian carving through Rembrandt and Manet to a dark room of Lalique glass.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is one man's collection, and it runs from Egyptian stone to Lalique glass. One route leads from Egyptian and Mesopotamian carving through Greek coins, Islamic ceramics, Armenian manuscripts and Japanese prints into European painting by Rembrandt, Rubens, Turner, Manet and Degas. The last room is kept dark, and it holds glass and jewellery by René Lalique. Gulbenkian was an Armenian born in Istanbul who negotiated the oil concessions of the Middle East and kept five per cent of the company for himself. He collected for sixty years, bought quietly, and refused to lend anything to anyone. He came to neutral Lisbon to sit out the war, stayed until he died, and left his fortune and his collection to a Portuguese foundation. What you walk through was then built around that collection, in a park, rather than the collection being fitted into a building that already existed.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Two collections, one campus — the Founder's Collection and the modern art building sit in the same park with the same ticket, and people regularly do one without realising the other is there.
One route, no branching — the Founder's Collection runs in a single line from the first room to the last, so the honest plan is to walk it once slowly rather than double back.
One buyer's taste, start to finish — no committee chose any of it, so the collection is stronger in some areas than others, and the jumps between rooms follow Gulbenkian's own interests.

Things to do

1
Walk the whole route once, in order
Start at the Egyptian stone and keep going without doubling back: Mesopotamia, Greek coins, Islamic tile, Armenian books, Japanese prints, then European painting. The sequence is the collector's own, so walking it in order is following one man's eye moving across four thousand years.
2
Give the dark Lalique room ten minutes
In the last room, give the glass and jewellery ten minutes rather than two. The light is kept low to protect the enamel and horn, so the pieces only become clear once your eyes have adjusted.
3
Sit by the lake in the park afterwards
Go out into the park afterwards and sit by the lake. It has its own entrances apart from the museum and is used mostly by people who live in the surrounding streets rather than by visitors. The foundation laid it out for public use, and it is one of the few large open spaces in this district.