MUSEU NACIONAL DE ARTE ANTIGA

Lisbon's Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (National Museum of Ancient Art) is one of Portugal's most prestigious museums. Located in the Lapa district, it houses an exceptional collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture, ceramics, silverware and other works of art spanning several centuries of European, Asian and African art history. As for the museum's garden, evoked by Antonio Tabucchi in his book Requiem: a thing of beauty!

To whet your appetite, start with a pretty painting by Boucher (Louis XV's favorite painter) in exquisite pink hues, before moving on to the room of foreign paintings: two Courbets, including a snowy landscape that anticipates Impressionist technique and light (not on show here). Side by side, a study by Fragonard which (better than in his finished paintings) reveals the painter's dexterity and speed in "sketching" his subject, and a study by Tiepolo.

In another room, among canvases by the Flemish school, you'll notice a very fine Pieter de Hooch (^16th century), entitled Conversation. Not far away, a Murillo (^17th century) from which the mystical face of Saint Catherine emerges against an absolutely dark background.

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

Next to it, a fine portrait by Van Dyck (^16th and ^17th centuries), a master in this 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 detail, for showing the figures of misery. Opposite, a very interesting ^17th-century canvas by the little-known Pieter de Bloot, Christ at Martha's House.

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.

Then, in the miraculous room, a Cranach, including a striking Salome: note the absolute emptiness of the gaze as you present the tray on which the decapitated head of St. John the Baptist rests (with its particularly realistic neck), and the triptych by the hallucinating Bosch: The Temptation of St. Anthony.

In the next room, take a look at canvas numbered 1261, a surprising ^16th-century face of the Child (attributed without certainty to the Master of the Half-Lengths): the background is made up of a multitude of tiny, round touches on which the Virgin's shadow is darkly outlined.

Closing the second floor is an altarpiece of sumptuous technique and craftsmanship: Sainte Anne et la Vierge, by Ramon Destorrents (^16th century). You'll pass pieces of Portuguese furniture, before losing yourself in reverie before three superb Japanese screens with golden clouds, depicting the Portuguese landing.

You then reach a floor devoted to Portuguese painting: in addition to a Descent from the Cross by Vasco Fernandès, a strange curiosity emerges: The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine (a most realistic decapitation). In response, a canvas shows the ascension of Saint Catherine, whose decapitated body is placed on a cloth carried by three angels, the fourth carrying the head... Alongside a diptych and a triptych attributed to Nuno Gonçalves, we finally arrive at the masterpiece by an unknown late ^16th-century artist. Certainly the finest Ecce Homo in the history of painting.