His writing production (more than seventy books on music, painting, architecture, ceramics, jewellery, ethnography, archaeology, decorative arts, home crafts, and artistic instruction) is divided between original studies, previously unpublished historical documentation, and catalogues, where his meticulous handling and thorough citation of primary sources earned him a reputation for rigour and integrity. It also emerges through civic intervention documents (cases of the controversy over the translation of a work by Goethe and the analysis of government projects for the reform of art education).

His writings also include multiple articles in the press (e.g.: in the newspapers A Atualidade, do Porto, Comércio do Porto, Ilustração Portuguesa, Jornal do Comércio, in Lisbon) and, in art, art pedagogy or teaching publications (A Arte, de Coimbra, A Arte: revista internacional, A Tribuna do Professor, Boletim da Real Associação dos Arquitetos e Arqueólogos Portugueses, Ilustração Moderna, O Arqueólogo Português, O Ensino. Jornal do Colégio Portuense dedicado aos Pais, Revista de Guimarães, Revista dos Liceus). Some of the publications are linked to institutions he was a part of or helped to found. This is the case of A Arte Portuguesa: Revista Mensal de Belas Artes , published by the Centro Artístico Portuense (founded in 1879), of which he was a patron member and elected president (1882-1883); or the Revista da Sociedade de Instrução do Porto , to whose foundation he was closely linked (1880), taking on the role of secretary, organising the first statutes and regulations, and serving as a member of the scientific committee (1881-1883).

His first work, published at the age of 21 (1870), was a biographical compilation of 400 Portuguese musicians, marking the beginning of the publication of biographical dictionaries on musicians in Portugal. It brings together information scattered across foreign dictionaries, particularly those by the German musician and musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel and the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis. It is also based on the work of the writer and bibliographer Diogo Barbosa de Machado, whose Biblioteca Lusitana [Lusitanian Library] is described as the "first origin of our biography" (Os Músicos Portugueses... [The Portuguese Musicians...], 1870, p. XXVIII), as well as on the "generous contributions of some devoted individuals", foremost among them the musicologist Joaquim José Marques. "To this distinguished man, art owes its most valuable services (...). This is the very rich source from which everything that has been written about music in Portugal in modern times has been drawn" (Idem, p. XXX).

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