MUSEU NACIONAL DE ARTE ANTIGA

Located in the "palace with green windows" that gave its name to the street, this museum of ancient art houses a rich collection of Portuguese masters, but also European painters from the 16th to the 20th century. It also has a very fine collection of goldsmith's and ceramics. As for the museum's garden, evoked by Antonio Tabucchi in his book Requiem: a beauty!

To whet your appetite, you'll start with a pretty canvas by Boucher (Louis XV's favourite painter) in exquisite pink colours, before moving on to the room of foreign paintings: two Courbet, including a snow landscape that anticipates Impressionist technique and light (not exhibited here). Side by side, a study by Fragonard, which (better than in his finished canvases) reveals the painter's dexterity and speed in "biting" his subject, and a study by Tiepolo.

In another room, among paintings of the Flemish school , you will note a very beautiful Pieter de Hooch (16th century), entitled Conversation. Not far away, a Murillo (17th century) from which, from the absolutely dark background, the mystical face of Saint Catherine emerges.

One room is dedicated to nine paintings by Zurbarán (17th century) depicting the apostles, painted with an apparent neutrality, but in fact with an in-depth realism.

Next to it is a beautiful portrait by Van Dyck (16th and 17th centuries), a master in the field. Further on, a Peter Bruegel (17th century) showing a scene of "charity", a pretext, in the painter's usual swarming and incredible profusion of details, to show the figures of misery. Opposite, a very interesting 17th century painting by Pieter de Bloot (little known), Christ in the House of Martha.

In the next room: two imposing altarpieces, including a Quentin Metsys(Way of the Cross, Deposition, Resurrection) and a Pieter Cœcke Van Aelst (16th century) with a more original composition.

Next, a miraculous room , a Cranach including a striking Salome: note the absolute emptiness of the gaze by presenting the tray where the decapitated head of Saint John the Baptist rests (with a particularly realistic neck), and the triptych of the hallucinating Bosch: The Temptation of Saint Anthony.

In the next room, you will pay attention to the canvas numbered 1261, a 16th-century face of the Child (attributed without certainty to the Master of the Half-Lenghts, Master of the Half-Shadows), which is very surprising: the background is composed of a multitude of tiny round brushstrokes on which the shadow of the Virgin is cut into darkness.

Closing this first floor is a sumptuous altarpiece of technique and workmanship: Saint Anne and the Virgin, by Ramon Destorrents (16th century). You will walk past pieces of Portuguese furniture, before getting lost in reverie in front of three superb Japanese screens with golden clouds and narrating the landing of the Portuguese.

You will then reach a floor dedicated to Portuguese painting: apart from a Descent from the Cross by Vasco Fernandes, a strange curiosity arises : The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine (a most realistic beheading). In response, a painting shows the ascension of Saint Catherine, whose decapitated body is placed on a cloth carried by three angels, the fourth carrying the head... Next to a diptych and a triptych attributed to Nuno Gonçalves, we finally arrive at the masterpiece, by an unknown author of the late 16th century. Certainly the most beautiful Ecce Homo in the history of painting.