Description:
To a great extent, the public and private azulejo collections assembled since the second half of the 20th century result from the decontextualisation of azulejo heritage, that is, from the transformation of decorative panels into loose "objects". This process, having promoted the circulation of these objects, has contributed to efface the memory of the azulejos´ original locations.

The provenance of many items from the collection of the National Museum of Azulejo and other smaller or private collections is listed as unknown. Morevoer, even when an item's provenance is known, a lot is still left to explain.

The aim of the present project is to (re)trace the history of many of these items, starting from the objects themselves and attempting to go back to the places where they originally stood (reenacting, albeit only virtually, the original decoration), as well as to recount the history of their often sinuous life paths.

The project starts out with three case studies, exhibiting different problems, useful for testing different methodologies and ways of communicating results: 1) the National Museum of Azulejo; 2) the Medeiros e Almeida House Museum; 3) the Berardo Collection´ adding to other contributions in the form of Master and PhD theses still in the making.

In the first case, the selection includes panels by Gabriel Barco, along with other decorations ascribed to Manuel dos Santos. The provenance of these decorations is already known, and the challenge is to determine how to create an Az Infinitum file that is able to describe the history of the items and to articulate them with other items, either lost or found, that are documented through photographs stored in private archives. The discussion will also focus on photography´s ability to preserve memories, and the Az Infinitum will soon offer a whole module devoted to old photographs.

In the Medeiros e Almeida House Museum, the inventory specifically mentions all tile decorations, although they amount to re-uses of decorations originally applied elsewhere. Likewise, these decorative sets enable us to examine items of known origin, but whose documentation is different from the one found in the previous example, as well as to analyse other items whose provenance is completely unknown.

The Berardo collection, in turn, is strongly concerned with the provenance of its items. This information will be useful in trying to reconstruct the original panels, by comparing them with other decorative sets and by examining archival photographs.


Funding:
ARTIS-IHA

Start date: 2014

Main Research Unit:
ARTIS - Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa

Co-Promoters:

Responsible Researchers: