John Allen was a Porto businessman of British descent who was born in Viana do Castelo, Portugal and educated from the age of 12 in Washington D.C., travelling widely throughout the US.

He fought in the Peninsular War when France invaded Portugal, commanding a company of volunteers during the rebellion against the French in Porto in 1808.

His business activities centred on the export of port wine and he lived in London between 1815 and 1821 to conduct that trade, before returning to Porto.

[1][2] Allen's travels throughout Europe, especially Italy, starting with his first Grand Tour to Italy in 1826 and 1827, combined with his wealth enabled this eclectic collector to build up a private collection of art, weapons, coins and medals, works in gold, crockery, Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, 20,000 mollusc shells and various curiosities.

He was particularly interested in ancient and contemporary paintings, which initially formed the bulk of his collection, purchasing canvases by Domingos Sequeira, Vieira Portuense, Joaquim Rafael, the French Rococo painter Jean-Baptiste Pillement, François Clouet, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Fyt, Alonso Sánchez Coello, Giuseppe Cades, and Sebastiano Bombelli, among many others.

[3] Unfortunately, by the mid-1840s, Allen's business began to deteriorate, largely related to problems with one of his partners, who sold wine on credit from the London office and did not receive payment.

He then retired to his estate, the Quinta de Villar d'Allen, in Campanhã, near Porto, where he developed spectacular gardens that still exist.

In addition, it received various new pieces, including the stone on which the coat of arms of Ferdinand I of Portugal was carved, moved from the Porto Customs House to the Allen Museum on 29 February 1872.