The Gulbenkian is a museum lover’s ideal - small enough to visit in three hours, but full of varied, priceless collections of masterworks by master artists and craftsmen. This is the MUST-SEE for museum-lovers in lovely Lisbon. What is so striking is the presence not of quantity, but quality of art and craftsmanship.

The first object I laid my eyes on, exhibit 1, Room 1, was a 4,000 B.C. Egyptian bowl that wowed me with its pure style and non-deteriorated state. You could use it today. The last objects I saw, in the basement, were the colorful, dazzling glassware and jewelry of Rene Lalique, who was Gulbenkian’s friend . In Room 5, there’s an exquisite Armenian jewel box; in Room 8, Rembrandt’s Portrait of an Old Man and Pallas Athene, and Rubens’ Portrait of Helene Fourment enthralled me.Then there’s Houdon’s shimmering sculpture, Diana, a breathtaking creation that Gulbenkian was fortunate to buy from Soviet owners who thought it was obscene and needed money.

Favorite rooms for me were Room 13, with its English collection of Gainsborough, Romney, Lawrence, and Turner masterworks, and Room 15, with its pristine works by Monet, Degas, Cassatt and Singer Sargent, as well as eloquent Rodin sculptures. That’s the effect of this museum; when you start to list your favorites, you find you are forgetting to mention another, and the list grows. Manet’s Boy Blowing Bubbles, was missing when we visited here, but, lo and behold, a few days later, we saw it in Madrid at the Prado, borrowed for that museum’s special Manet exhibition .

Gulbenkian spent his 86 years here on earth pursuing enormous wealth from brokering oil sales, so he could pursue acquiring the best in paintings, sculpture, furniture, rugs, tapestries, screens, and more from diverse ages and countries. In gratitude for Portugal giving him sanctuary as well as tax concessions (and a residence from which they evicted a Portuguese noble!) during World War Two, bachelor Gulbenkian bequeathed his enormous fortune to his adopted country.

From this museum’s spacious, wood-paneled reception area to its bookshop, where we bought for €13 ($15.83) five posters of some favorite paintings in the museum’s European Collection, to its classy adjoining café, where we lunched on the terrace that faces the extensive gardens that contain numerous sculptures, this museum is a delight. While we ate our excellent lunch on the terrace, we saw several children having fun leaping around the gardens.

Later I discovered that this user-friendly museum has a Centro Artistico Infantil, a FREE child-care center that is open from 9:30am to 5:30pm for ages 4 to 12. This boon for museum-going travelers with children has its entrance off nearby Rua Marques de Sa de Bandeira. Without a doubt, I consider the Gulbenkian a splendid museum that is a premier Lisbon sight.

This art collection is truly a gem and is considered one of the best in Europe. You start with Greco-Roman statues, then there is a large collection of gorgeous Persian carpets, ceramics and tiles, Turkish velvet covers and Chinese porcelain. The collection of European art starts with illuminated manuscripts, followed by Flemish tapestries and several porcelain Madonnas by della Robbia. A beautiful collection of European furniture mainly from the 18th century (in the style of Louis XV and XVI) includes Boulle calendar clock, bookcases and medal cabinets by Cressent. The collection of European paintings spans 5 centuries starting with 14th century triptychs and miniatures and through the beginning of the 20th century. There are well-displayed paintings by Weyden, Ghirlandaio, Carpaccio, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, La Tour, Gainesborough, Fragonard, Guardi, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Monet and Cezanne. And of course there are breathtaking statues of Houdon’s Diana, Rodin’s Blessings and Carpeaux’s amazing Flora with white marble flowers looking so lifelike. But to me the most wonderful part was Gulbenkian’s collection of Lalique creations. Rene Lalique was a personal friend of Gulbenkian. The ultimate symbol of Art Nouveau – Lalique’s "Dragonfly" – which is on the cover of a lot of books on Art Nouveau - is here on display and draws everybody to itself like a magnet. You can see amazing brooches, necklaces, vases, combs and pendants with serpents or female faces or female figures or animal miniatures made out of semi-precious stones and surrounded by god leaf and diamonds. The Lalique collection is exquisite, you can spend hours in front of each item studying its details and still uncover something you didn’t notice before.