Religious silverware has always relied on words to better develop a relationship that was meant to catechize the faithful and which, at the same time, could be used by its owners as a way of asserting power. The analysis of the relationships between word and image makes it possible to supplement research with small pieces of information that, when examined in depth, allow art historians to gain a greater knowledge of it. It was on the basis of this unquestionable interest in such notes and, gathering this set of religious silverware found in mainland Portugal, of Spanish origin and dated between 1580 and 1640, that we engaged in personal dialogues with each specimen, resulting in the interpretations presented below, in the course of this study.

The institution of private chapels linked to Exile theme, may result from a greater influence of the Cistercian Order on the families that erected them. Their construction was also a symbol of their local statement and nobility. The care in the execution of carved altars of these buildings demonstrates the desire to ennoble their spaces and their faith on the salvation of their souls. The chapel altarpiece of Our Lady of Exile (Nossa Senhora do Desterro), Granja Nova, Tarouca, shows an intentional approach to the values of higher erudition of the art of that time, inspiring in the sources that came to Portugal from two of the most important artistic centres of Europe – Flanders and Italy.

The present study, which deals religious Baroque Portuguese furniture, focuses on objects that were in the service of the liturgy, as credences, washbasins, tables or bofetes, pulpits and rails. The highlight of these examples, made in stone, seeks to inform about some of the Eucharistic ceremonial furniture, such as those of the purification of the priest, those that supported the liturgy, those that supported the priest and divided the space. As I have already noted in other studies, the use of stone and the morphologically characteristics that they exhibit, place them within the Portuguese Baroque production.

The São Dâmaso Church is in the history of Guimarães an unavoidable reference in the end of the XVII century and during the XVIII century. It is a reference for the hiring of well-known local artists and especially for what we can still admire nowadays. The works of architectonical character and the orders of the decorative programs of this temple constitute, an important legacy of the religious, economic and artistic dynamism of its orderer.

Portuguese tile production and its works dated from the first half of the eighteen century found on the prints presented on the piedmont illustrated book La Venaria Reale. Palazzo di Piacere, e di Caccia, edited in Turin in 1674, the inspiration to certain pictures of tile works made both to the ecclesiastic and aristocratic clientele. Exploring the mythological theme of Diana or in noble character equestrian representations, the use of those engravings it’s a fact, although in a slight décalage circumstance, with them being used by different tile painters to several work requests. Appealing to the special incidence of that graphic source, beginning with the comparison between engravings and tile depictions, we will analyze the print assimilation strategies of the different intervenients considering the background question of a shared repertoire among members of the same métier.

In this paper I shall present and discuss two gilt bronze frames belonging to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga that have not been studied before. The frames, containing two mosaics by Pietro Paolo Cristofari (1685-1743), representing the Ecce Homo and a Praying Madonna, have been briefly mentioned in works dedicated to art and culture of the reign of king John V and its relation to the Roman culture of the first half of the 18th century, but they have never received specific attention. It is our aim to go further in the study of these frames which can be attributed to the Roman silversmith and founder Francesco Giardoni (1692-1757), who is the author of several other works for Portugal during the reign of the Magnanimous.

This article follows a research carried out under the Master’s degree in History of Portuguese Art, which had as its object of study the devotional dressed sculpture in Aveiro, and as main goal to help value this type of sculpture and alert for its study and proper inventorying, conservation and display. The absence of attention regarding this sculpture – which aggregates other decorative arts – in the historiography of Portuguese art, led to the need of synthesize what was found on this subject internationally. We propose the possible ways of analyses on the practice of dressing sacred images, from the search for answers about the origin of this phenomenon in a christian context, to the different forms this images may adopt, never forgetting the importance of their outfits and adornments, and their proximity with the communities to which they belonged.

The so-called “St. Ambrose Cell”, in the Museum of Arouca (Portugal), is a show-case revealing the interaction of religious apparatus and vernacular domestic furniture. Many stylistic references crossed Portuguese late eighteenth-century Decorative Arts. This miniature reveals a semi-private space of a religious scholar, where he could pray, write and socialize. It’s studded with a multitude of pieces representative of the Portuguese civil fashion of the eighteenth century. Several chairs, a settee, a table, a cabinet as well books in two shelves of English influence are decorated with crimson silk fabric. Two cages hang from the ceiling. A monkey and a parrot on their perches are signs of colonial exoticism of the time.

To perform this study, we expose some elements that we think we can contribute to costume and fashion history in Portugal, strengthening the role of tailors and dressmakers in Lisbon, who helped on the fashion followed by the ladies of high social strata, in particular those of the Court. Coming mainly from foreign countries, these boosters practiced quite effective forms of advertising and their services were very often recognized, getting permits and privileges. Many of them stayed in the annals of the olisiponense history in the late 18th century and in the first half of the 19th century.