Portraits of the Portuguese Royal Family for the Chesma Palace

It has been organized by the State Hermitage and the National Archive of Torre do Tombo (Portugal) with the assistance of the Sharing Foundation (Portugal), the Centre of Russian Art and Culture (Portugal), the Embassy of Portugal in Russia and ARTIS – the Art History Institute at the University of Lisbon (Portugal).

Five portraits of members of the Portuguese royal family in the collection of the State Hermitage were produced to a commission from Empress Catherine II by the Portuguese court painter Miguel António do Amaral (c. 1710–1780) for the Chesme Palace on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, where in the 1770s a gallery of portraits of ruling European monarchs and their heirs was created.

In January and February 1773, Russian ambassadors to European courts were given instructions to commission paintings of the monarchs and members of their families and to dispatch them to Saint Petersburg when completed. The idea of creating a gallery of foreign rulers came to Catherine II at the same time as the construction of the “amusement castle” that initially was known by the Finnish name of its location as Kekerekeksinen (“Frog Marsh”). In 1780, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Russian naval victory over the Turks in Chesme Bay, it was renamed, becoming the Chesminsky or Chesme Palace.

Fifty-six portraits of royal personages hung in the Chesme Palace until 1830, when, on the orders of Nicholas I, the building was reconstructed to serve as a home for invalids – the Chesme Military Hospice. All the paintings were removed to the English Palace in Peterhof. After the revolution, in the 1920s, the paintings were transferred to the Hermitage.

The display begins with portraits of the Portuguese royal couple: King Joseph (José) I (1714–1777) and his wife Mariana Victoria (1718–1781), the daughter of King Philip V of Spain. Joseph I, known as the Reformer, ascended to the throne in 1750. During his reign, efforts were made to reconstruct all aspects of economic, social and colonial policy to enable Portugal to compete more effectively with other European great powers.

Since the couple had no sons, the King designated his eldest daughter, Maria Francisca (1734–1816), as heir to the throne and accordingly proclaimed her Princess of Brazil. In June 1760, Maria married her own uncle, her father’s younger brother, Don Pedro (1717–1786), who was given the title Prince of Brazil after the wedding. After her father’s death, she became queen as Mary or Maria I. Her eldest son, the heir apparent to the Portuguese throne, Infante José (1761–1788), bore the title Prince of Brazil and in 1777 married his mother’s younger sister, Princess Benedita (1746–1829). Their marriage remained childless until his death from smallpox in 1788. The display includes portraits of all these members of the Portuguese royalty, except Benedita.

The artist who painted the portraits – Miguel António do Amaral – was a pupil of a master portraitist famed in Portugal, Francisco Pinto Pereira, whose works were very highly rated by contemporaries. In 1754 Amaral was accepted into the painters’ Guild of Saint Luke in Lisbon. The artist produced pictures on religious subjects, including large-scale paintings for churches and monasteries. Amaral became best known, though, for his work in portraiture, which was the dominant genre throughout his career. The artist and art historian Ciryllo Wolkmar Machado (1748–1823) wrote that Amaral produced many portraits in Lisbon, especially noting the royal portraits and the fact that they included works commissioned by an agent of Russian Empress Catherine II.

The exhibition is timed to mark the 240th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Portugal and Russia.

The exhibition curator is Sviatoslav Konstantinovich Savvateyev, senior researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art.