Musical instruments and collecting between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century: the Portuguese case

In the mid-19th century, there was a growing interest in Europe in the collecting of musical instruments, and many initially private collections led to the founding of some of the most important museums specializing in this field. These collections, composed of modern, ancient, and “exotic” instruments, both reflected and nourished contemporary musicological and organological thought, in a context marked by a process of universalization.

In Portugal, at the dawn of the Republic, Michel’angelo Lambertini (1862-1920), Alfredo Keil (1850-1907), and António Lamas (1861-1915), figures who stood out in the national musical scene for various reasons, followed this trend and formed their own instrumental collections. The first two, convinced of the educational value of such collections, even envisioned projects for the creation of musical instrument museums in the country. Today, much of their collections belongs to the National Museum of Music, but little is still known about the intentions behind their formation, the narrative the collectors aimed to convey, and the impact these collections had on musicology and the Portuguese musical scene of their time.

Through the development of a catalogue raisonné of the collections of these three personalities, we will seek to uncover what motivated them to start these collections and the processes involved in their formation. Additionally, we will propose an overall view of each collection, highlighting the collecting identity of each individual in order to paint a portrait of musical instrument collecting in the country, later situating it within the European context.