Museums and Palaces

The Museum is divided into two exhibitions, a temporary one, of themes related to the installation, and the permanent "Raul da Bernarda Ceramics Collection". This one registers and praises a heritage of more than 135 years, which unique and chronologically exhibited pieces document the importance and richness of Alcobaça's ceramic industry.

Raul da Bernarda & Filhos, Lda. is the oldest crockery factory in Alcobaça. Founded in 1875 by José dos Reis, it would introduce the Coimbra style utilitarian crockery in the town. José dos Reis was succeeded in the small production line by Manuel Ferreira da Bernarda, director from 1900 to the end of the 1920s. Already under the administration of his son, Raul da Bernarda, the factory acquires a creative impulse from the 1930s, fruit of his entrepreneur and the team of ceramic painters who would mark the regional and national decorative art, with the launch of the so-called artistic porcelain of Alcobaça.

The museum was opened by Raul da Bernarda in 2000 and later acquired by the City Council of Alcobaça, which has managed it since 2010. The main exhibition consists of a collection donated to the municipality by former members of the company, with over a hundred pieces that portray the historical, ethnographic and artistic memory of Alcobaça's social and cultural past - from 1900 to 1970.

Attached to the Museum is the Raul da Bernarda Shop, where the best collections of the current production of the factory are on sale, which before were only available in the most prestigious international outlets.