The estate of João Miguel dos Santos Simões was donated by his heirs to the Museu Nacional do Azulejo in 2006, thereafter being integrated into this institution’s library specialising in Ceramics, Tiles, and the Conservation and Restoration of Ceramics.

It comprises different materials, some of which original:

_ Santos Simões library, dedicated to Tiles and Ceramics;

_ Manuscripts and printed documents (thematic dossiers, notebooks and folders with texts, projects and notes on Tiles, Ceramics, Painting, Iconography, Museology, Safeguarding the Heritage and Bibliography, editorial proofs and previously unpublished studies), technical, scientific, professional and institutional correspondence;

_ Thematic, topographic, onomastic and iconographic files;

_ Sketches and photographs, proofs printed on paper, in black and white and in colour, and slides.

The cataloguing of this donation has already been carried out by archive technicians at RTEACJMSS, using the DIGITARQ application for this purpose, currently available in open source at the Direcção-Geral de Arquivos (DGARQ – Directorate-General of Archives). Any consultation of this material does, however, require a prior request to be made to the Museu Nacional do Azulejo.  


For a more detailed description of the estate, please consult:
Susana Varela Flor – O Espólio de João Miguel dos Santos Simões. In João Miguel dos Santos Simões 1907 – 1972. Lisboa: Ministério da Cultura / Instituto Português de Museus / Museu Nacional do Azulejo, 2007, p.223-236. 


More recently, the aim of the project DigiTile Library: azulejos and ceramics online (PTDC/EAT-EAT/117315/2010), coordinated by Susana Varela Flor, was to study the unpublished documents left by João Manuel dos Santos Simões and the Department of Azulejos of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and to confront them with the Gulbenkian Art Library’s other collections.