Photo: Bextrel · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museu Rainha D. Leonor

National museum housed in the former Convento de Nossa Senhora da Conceição in Beja, with sculpture, painting, goldsmith work, azulejos and archaeology; closed for works.

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. The museum is closed for refurbishment works. The regional press indicates reopening at the end of 2026, but this has not been officially confirmed.

About the museum

The Museu Rainha D. Leonor (Queen D. Leonor Museum), formerly called the Museu Regional de Beja (Beja Regional Museum), is housed in the former Convento de Nossa Senhora da Conceição. The convent was founded in the second half of the 15th century by the infantes D. Fernando and D. Brites, parents of D. Leonor and D. Manuel I, and became one of the richest and most sumptuous in the kingdom. It is also associated with the story of Soror Mariana Alcoforado and the window mentioned in the Cartas Portuguesas (Portuguese Letters).

The Museu Regional de Beja was created by decree of December 1917, with the assets of the former Mitra (the diocesan endowment) of the city and the collections of the Museu Arqueológico Municipal, and it opened to the public on 5 October 1927, after the building was adapted.

The collections are numerous and varied: sculpture, painting, goldsmith work, azulejos, decorative arts, metrology, ethnography and archaeology, with an emphasis on the territory of Baixo Alentejo. The museum is closed for refurbishment works, supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), which provide for the replacement of the roof, the treatment of the collection and a new exhibition route.