The book Collections, Exhibitions and Museums in Portugal and Its Empire, initially conceived by Foteini Vlachou, was published by Routledge, edited by Filipa Lowndes Vicente and Leonor de Oliveira, who continued the project after Foteini’s death.

At the time of her passing in 2017, Vlachou was a postdoctoral researcher at the IHC, where she was working on a project about national and imperial identities in the visual culture of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America at the end of the 19th century. She was also a guest lecturer in Art History at NOVA FCSH.

Alicia Migueléz, a specialist in Medieval Art at the IEM, who accompanied this project and authors one of the book’s 12 chapters, tells us that she hopes the work will make it possible to extend the legacy of Foteini Vlachou and Luís de Moura Sobral, ‘two important names for the historiography of Portuguese art’ who have since died, as well as ‘open up new avenues of research for future specialists interested in producing knowledge about Portugal and its heritage’.

Focusing on the period between the beginning of the 18th century and the end of the 20th century, the book now published ‘examines the histories of objects, museums, exhibitions, and collections in Portugal or outside Portugal but representing Portugal, or related to it through colonial relationships’. The introduction was written by Foteini Vlachou, Filipa Lowndes Vicente, and Leonor de Oliveira.

Photo: Foteini Vlachou