Produced in the context of the third exhibition in the Conversations series, this bilingual publication, by meticulously relating images and text, explores the connections between the Portuguese artist Ana Hatherly (1929–2015) and the Baroque art and literature. The text is by the curator Paulo Pires do Vale and begins with an introduction that examines the underlying principles of the exhibition – Tradition as innovation – before addressing the categories of the Baroque worldview that gave rise to each of its sections: Labyrinth: folds upon folds; Time: the Game and Death; Allegory: the joy of interpretation; Metamorphosis: the oblique dialogue between poetry and painting.

With respect to images, the reader is first confronted by a group of illustrations of some of the works on display. As the text unfolds, these works are then linked to each section of the exhibition. There is also a leaflet that reproduces most of the artist’s iconic series of drawings titled The Pomegranate. But perhaps the most innovative part of this series of publications is the inclusion of an offprint, produced with the assistance of Ana Marques Gastão, that republishes one of Ana Hatherly’s essays on this historical period: ‘Representations of time during the Baroque period’.