National Tile Museum

The emancipation of this institution from the National Museum of Ancient Art took place formally in 1980. However, its settlement in the Madre de Deus Convent began in the mid-twentieth century and is related to the classification of the convent as a national monument, following works of restoration in the cloister and church paintings, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. As one of the ten most visited museums in Lisbon in 2018, its mission is to collect, preserve, study and disseminate representative examples of the evolution of ceramics and tile in the country. The building was constructed as a Manueline temple but was transformed by various artistic campaigns, especially baroque and rococo, and was also partially damaged by the earthquake. The church is a sumptuous space with abundant gilded woodwork and paintings that add to large-scale tile panels painted in blue on white.