Museu Allen
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 1902 interior view of the Museu Allen | |
  The former location of the Museu Allen in Porto | |
| Established | 1836 |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | 1905 |
| Location | Miragaia, Porto, Portugal |
| Coordinates | 41°8′44″N 8°37′26″W / 41.14556°N 8.62389°W |
| Type | Covered a variety of disciplines |
| Collections | Paintings, Ceramics, Sculpture, Engravings, Epigraphs, Natural History |
| Founder | John Francis Allen |
| Owner | John Francis Allen and family |
Museu Allen (Allen Museum), also referred to as the Museu da Restauração (Restoration Museum) and the Museu Portuense da Rua da Restauração, was located in the parish of Miragaia, in the city and district of Porto, in Portugal. The first museum in Porto to offer public admission, it was dedicated to the exhibition of collections of art, natural history, epigraphs and other items owned by John Francis Allen (1781-1848), a wealthy port wine dealer, whose collection was, at the time, considered the best private collection in the country.
John Allen was a Porto businessman of British descent who was born in Viana do Castelo, Portugal and educated from the age of 12 in Washington D.C., travelling widely throughout the US. He fought in the Peninsular War when France invaded Portugal, commanding a company of volunteers during the rebellion against the French in Porto in 1808. His business activities centred on the export of port wine and he lived in London between 1815 and 1821 to conduct that trade, before returning to Porto. He was a member of the British Factory, an organization of business people who were mainly port exporters, and co-founder of Banco Comercial do Porto (Commercial Bank of Porto) and the Commercial Association of Porto.[1][2]
History of the museum
Allen's travels throughout Europe, especially Italy, starting with his first Grand Tour to Italy in 1826 and 1827, combined with his wealth enabled this eclectic collector to build up a private collection of art, weapons, coins and medals, works in gold, crockery, Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, 20,000 mollusc shells and various curiosities. He was particularly interested in ancient and contemporary paintings, which initially formed the bulk of his collection, purchasing canvases by Domingos Sequeira, Vieira Portuense, Joaquim Rafael, the French Rococo painter Jean-Baptiste Pillement, François Clouet, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Fyt, Alonso Sánchez Coello, Giuseppe Cades, and Sebastiano Bombelli, among many others. His museum had 599 paintings. Allen's collection of Portuguese coins was said to have been bettered only by the King. Among the curiosities was said to be some of the hair of Inês de Castro, the lover of King Pedro I of Portugal.[1][2][3][4]
As his collection grew, including as a result of the purchase of an entire collection of flora and fauna specimens, Allen's home proved incapable of housing all the works he owned, let alone displaying them adequately. After the Siege of Porto (1832-1833), during the Portuguese civil war, in which his house at 281 Rua da Restauração luckily remained unscathed, he decided to build an annex to his residence to house the collection. Construction began in 1836, with the museum consisting of three large halls receiving direct light through skylights in the ceiling. Every Sunday, Allen would personally guide visitors around the museum, with entry being free. It was opened on other days of the week for artists and scholars.[1][2][3][5]