Guest Work

Mark and graphic design for Guest Work initiative of Portuguese National Ancient Art Museum (MNAA).

The regular Guest Work exhibitions began in 2013 with Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). In a spectacular confrontation between two paintings, similar in composition but radically different in iconography, Judith and the Head of Holofernes, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was presented alongside the MNAA’s famous Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist.

The Guest Work initiative intends to place guest works from external collections in dialogue with works from the Museum's own collection. Some of the partner institutions already involved in this project are: The Frick Collection (New York), Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid), Städel Museum (Frankfurt am Main), Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels), Museum Kunstpalast (Düsseldorf) and The State Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg).

Founded in 1884, the MNAA-Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga is the home of the most important Portuguese public collection of art, ranging from paintings to sculpture, and gold and silverware, as well as decorative arts from Europe, Africa and the Far East. Comprising over 40,000 items, the MNAA collection has the largest number of works classified by the State as “national treasures”. In its various sections, it also has a number of major works of art in the context of the world artistic heritage.