"Inventário da Azulejaria Portuguesa" is a collection of photographs pasted onto cardboard. Comprising 5028 photographic documents (in colour and black and white), the collection is part of a broader, more ambitious project proposed by Portuguese tile researcher João Miguel Santos Simões (1807-1972) to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1958, a project that resulted in the publication of Brigada de Estudos da Azulejaria and Corpus da Azulejaria Portuguesa by the Foundation between 1963 and 1970. Covering a vast continental and Atlantic geographic territory, these photographic spoils - digitalized in 2005 and available online through the catalogue of the CGF's Art Library - constitute an important historical document for the study and inventorying of the heritage of Portuguese tiles, both the part that remains and that which has been lost. The aim of this text is to present and validate the documental significance of this collection within the context of a broader organizational structure, such as the systematic sampling and gathering of current data on Portuguese tiles.
Portuguese tiles; Inventory; Documental photography
