Museu do Oriente

The Museu do Oriente opened in 2008 in the Pedro Álvares Cabral building, a cod-drying warehouse of 1940 on the Alcântara docks, converted with the industrial volume kept. Its collection covers the Portuguese presence in Asia from the sixteenth century - Macau above all, held until 1999, with paintings, furniture, screens, textiles, porcelain and Chinese export art made for European buyers, along with Japanese Namban material, Indo-Portuguese ivories and furniture, and objects from Timor and Goa. The second major holding is the Kwok On collection, several thousand objects of Asian performing arts acquired from a Paris museum: masks, puppets, shadow figures and costumes from China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere, which is a different museum entirely and the more visually striking of the two. It runs concerts, talks and temporary exhibitions.

What you actually see

• The Macau collection - painting, furniture and export art from the Portuguese presence.
• The Kwok On holding - thousands of Asian masks, puppets and performance costumes.
• The Namban and Indo-Portuguese work - Japanese screens and Goan ivories.
• The building - a 1940 cod warehouse converted with its industrial volume intact.

When to go

Year-round. Two hours. Closed Mondays; open late on Fridays, when entry is free in the evening.

Honest expectations

The colonial framing is handled unevenly - the museum presents the trade and exchange more than the coercion behind parts of it. Alcântara is away from the tourist centre. The Kwok On galleries are dimly lit for conservation. Two collections that do not obviously belong together.

Nearby

The LX Factory is a short walk; Belém is west along the river.