Illustrare – Journeys of Scientific Illustration in Portugal

Illustrare: Journeys of Scientific Illustration in Portugal opened at the National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC) in Lisbon on 6 November 2020, running until the end of 2023. The exhibition was the product of more than twenty years of research and iconographic collection, and it explored fundamental questions about scientific illustration — what it is, whether it serves an objective purpose or reflects the individual illustrator's sensibility, whether it is an ancient or recent practice, and whether its practitioners are better understood as scientists or as artists. Its home institution is a distinguished one: MUHNAC was created in 1768 and is integrated into the University of Lisbon, holding scientific collections in botany, zoology, anthropology, geology, and palaeontology totalling around 620,000 specimens, as well as important collections of scientific instruments dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries. The exhibition brought together a vast body of Portuguese natural history scientific illustrations spanning six centuries, complemented by taxidermied specimens and models drawn from MUHNAC itself as well as from the Vasco da Gama Aquarium, the National Museum of Archaeology, and the Foundation of the House of Braganza. This breadth of loans gave Illustrare an unusually rich material scope, allowing visitors to see the evolution of illustration practice — from the hand-drawn renderings of early modern natural history expeditions through to contemporary techniques — and to understand how images of the natural world have functioned simultaneously as scientific documents and objects of aesthetic wonder. Visitors encountered a variety of drawings executed with fine detail across different techniques and materials, making the exhibition both a scholarly survey and a visually compelling experience. Illustrare was part of the programming for Lisbon Green Capital 2020, and it used that occasion to reflect on the role of natural history museums in the development of science and in cultivating environmental values and a "green" way of thinking and acting. The exhibition was coordinated by Nuno Farinha and co-curated by Farinha alongside Ana Teresa Bigio, Pedro Salgado, and Diana Marques, reflecting MUHNAC's broader commitment to one of the most comprehensive surveys of Portuguese scientific illustration ever mounted.