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The founding decree of the Machado de Castro Museum stated that the Museum was to be organized «in order to offer to the public study collections and exemplars of the evolution of the history of national work (...) for education of public taste and learning of the working classes» (DECRETO-LEI 124/1911). Years later, critical voices far from understanding the concepts that led to its creation labeled the primitive institution as a warehouse, asserting that its organization only resulted from the contingency of the arrangement of works from extinct religious congregations. The following communication intends to discuss such opinions basing its argument on a body of evidence that refute the idea that the Museum was conceived without obeying to any concerted logic.