Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

Saturday morning we began our tour of Lisbon with a visit to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. Gulbenkian was an Armenian oil-man (sic; not oil-person; I know this from doing 13 years in Dallas) whom the Portuguese gave political asylum in 1942. He left his billions to Lisbon, when he died in 1955, to create a museum for his collection and to continue his practice of tithing 10% to art. The museum is comparable in many ways to the Burrell Collection in Glasgow: the tastes and interests of one man, eclectric in every way, beautifully displayed in a purpose-built structure that is itself of interest, etc. Its impressive Asia Minor collection--Gulbenkian's homeland--is something the Burrell does not have, particularly its Muslim art.  We had a nice lunch, with the seasonal squash soup, and then moved on....

Entrance to the Gulbenkian

Muslim decorative tiles

The museum is in a park-like area, but smack in the city

15th century Muslim lamp

Like the Burrell, in the Gulbenkian you look out the

windows, here from Chinese (Ming and Qing) gallery,

and see a garden

A Medieval traveling altar; obviously a

wealthy merchant or clergy

I am keeping my beard trimmed short these

days so as not to look like Rembrandt's old

man

A Turner; yes!

Madame Monet, painted by Renoir (or maybe it was

Madame Renoir...)

And a Sargeant

And a whole gallery of Lalique, who was really into snakes

The very famous Lalique dragon fly

But he was really into snakes