Soares dos Reis National Museum

The former Porto Museum of Paintings and Prints was founded in 1833 and was the first public art museum in Portugal. The building where it is installed since 1940 was built in the late eighteenth century by a wealthy family in Porto. Classified as a Public Interest Building, the Carrancas Palace - as it is known - hosts collections of ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, jewelry, furniture, painting, textiles and glass. The oldest pieces date from the sixteenth century and the most recent of the nineteenth century. It is worth mention the sculpture “Desterrado” (Exiled) a masterpiece of the patron of the museum, the sculptor António Soares dos Reis. The National Museum Soares dos Reis was renovated and expanded according to the project of the architect Fernando Távora, which preserved the features of the historic building, giving it new and skilled interior and exterior spaces. It has a restaurant cafe.