Scientific Commissioner – Rui Morais
Executive Commissioner – José da Costa Reis
On the 170th anniversary of João Allen’s death, the MNSR carries out an old project of holding an exhibition in honor of the founder of one of the 2 museums in Porto that, in the 19th century, were a harbinger of modernity and linked collecting and the protection of heritage with research and education, the Allen Museum.
The commissioners, Rui Morais and José Costa Reis, with the collaboration of João Allen’s family and the other institutions that hold collections that belonged to him, Câmara Municipal do Porto and Misericórdia do Porto, started by studying the passport from the trip to Italy that João Allen carried out in 1826/1827 and created an exhibition that traces the route of this journey and shows its influence on the opening of this collector’s museum in the city of Porto, in 1837.
The diverse nature of the collections on display in the exhibition, both in temporal and disciplinary terms, reflects the eclecticism that the training and determination of an erudite man like João Allen imprinted on his museum.