Chinese ceramics in Lisbon — The Medeiros e Almeida Museum in context

António de Medeiros e Almeida (1895–1986), a prominent Portuguese entrepreneur and philanthropist, devoted much of his life to assembling an outstanding collection of decorative arts, today preserved at the Museu Medeiros e Almeida in Lisbon. Among its most significant components is the Chinese ceramics collection, comprising approximately 1100 works acquired over six decades from leading antique dealers, and auction houses across Europe. Carefully documented through correspondence, invoices, and transport records, these acquisitions provide unique insights into mid-20th-century collecting practices, provenance research, and the circulation of Chinese art in the international market. Spanning more than a millennium of ceramic production, the collection ranges from Han dynasty earthenware funeral objects ( mingqi ) to refined Song celadons, and from early Ming ‘first orders’ commissioned for the Portuguese court to Qing imperial porcelains of exceptional technical and artistic quality. The breadth and coherence of this corpus, virtually unknown to the wider Chinese ceramics community, distinguishes it from other Portuguese collections traditionally centred on Qing export wares. Displayed in a dedicated gallery of 320 selected works, the ceramics trace the evolution of forms, techniques, and cross-cultural symbolism while reflecting Medeiros e Almeida’s personal taste and cosmopolitan outlook. This article seeks to introduce and contextualise this remarkable collection, highlighting its importance as both a case study in Portuguese collecting history and a valuable resource for international scholarship on Chinese ceramics and intercultural exchange.