MARINA ALMEIDA
Words

Magazine Layout

Towards the end of the 18th century, the Marquis of Pombal sent naturalists on philosophical expeditions to the New World, where they visited Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Brazil. These studies were founded on the meticulous drawings of fauna, flora, people, and landscapes made during these trips, 1,200 of which make up a collection of illustrations currently housed at the Museu de História Natural (Natural History Museum). Fortunately, they have survived over two centuries and a major fire that consumed the Escola Politécnica in 1978. A unique treasure indeed.

The illustrations have been slightly retouched to disguise the marks of time.

Ramphastos tucanus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Anacardium occidentali L.

We’re never really prepared for what the Natural History Museum has to offer us. Whether it’s an exhibition, with countless display cases replete with objects, documents and history, or the museum’s reserves, where the greatest treasures are kept. One such example is an impeccable and impressive collection of drawings from the 1700s, which boasts albums and albums containing depictions of fish, shells, hedgehogs, birds, tribes, maps and landscapes of foreign lands that intrigued the Portuguese crown. The drawings are lifelike documents, representing every feather of a bird, every spine of a hedgehog, every scale of a fish. The prints are pressed on yellowed paper, boasting perfect strokes and colours, documenting a history of curiosity. And much more.

“In the late 18th century, for the first time, there was a thirst to discover what the New World was all about in a structured and systematic way. It was the Europe of the time. The Marquis of Pombal ordered expeditions be prepared, sending four naturalists to explore what was the Portuguese empire of the time. Some went to Angola, others to Mozambique and South America. The most famous of all was Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira, who went to Brazil” explains Marta Lourenço, director of the museum and our guide to this wonderful world of illustrations and science. In addition to Rodrigues Ferreira, the naturalists José Joaquim da Silva (Angola), Manuel Galvão da Silva (Angola and Mozambique), and João da Silva Feijó (Cape Verde) led the delegations.

Made between 1783 and 1792, the 1,200 drawings are protected from the light and carefully stored at the right temperature and humidity, although they were lucky to escape the fire that consumed the Science Faculty in the early hours of 18th March, 1978. At the time, the faculty was housed in the Escola Politécnica building, which is home to MUNHAC in Lisbon’s city centre. Although years of research and irreplaceable objects were lost, the drawings were safely tucked away in the zoology section.

This historical treasure is regularly handled by the historian and curator Ana Godinho, who has been studying the collection for two years and tells us that the expeditions lasted about a year and were painstakingly prepared. A manual, dated 1781, details the “Method of Collecting, Preparing, Shipping, and Preserving Natural Products” for these missions, which began a year later. Marta Lourenço admits that each naturalist had their own copy, although the museum has just the one. Before the voyages, the illustrators trained at Casa do Risco, at the Real Museu Jardim Botânico da Ajuda (whose buildings still survive). During these times, drawing had a scientific and documental function, responding to the inquisitiveness of the higher echelons of Europe, and piquing the Marquis of Pombal’s interest. Casa do Risco was the first school of scientific illustration in Portugal, established in 1768 by Domenico Agostino Vandelli, an Italian naturalist and professor at the University of Coimbra, who also oversaw the “philosophical” expeditions to the Portuguese colonies. Vandelli did not participate in any expedition but sent several of his students.

Each expedition serving the Portuguese crown included one or two illustrators. Although few drawings were signed, research allows us to identify some of the authors, such as José Joaquim Freire, Manuel Tavares da Fonseca, Cipriano Moreira da Silva, Manuel Piolti, Ângelo Donati and Joaquim José Codina. The expedition leaders Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira and Joaquim José da Silva also drew. “These are the most forgotten people in the history of art in Portugal. They’re magnificent illustrators, the best there are, but they rarely signed anything. Only a handful signed their work because the drawings were considered tools,” says Marta Lourenço.

One print is particularly invaluable for understanding how people worked in the field. It’s part of the Mozambique expedition drawings and shows the explorers collecting specimens, local inhabitants, books, an illustrator with his drawing board, a man storing coral, not forgetting the barrels filled with aguardente brandy, which was essential to preserve the species collected on the return trips. “The whole story can be found in this drawing. That said, this landscape is not of the New World. What’s interesting are the positions, how they behaved, and the objects they collected. That’s what’s important. The landscape was European” says Marta Lourenço, explaining that, just like the drawing, many others were started locally and finished in Lisbon. That is why we often find birds disproportionate in size to the trunk they are perched upon, a sloth with a strange mountain in the background, or European trees cheek-by-jowl with African species. It’s the job of research to separate fact from fiction, or the illustrator’s imagination. A challenge that implies time-consuming investigation.

The drawings have now been converted into a high-quality, digital format and made accessible to researchers, although there are plans to make them available to the public online. Until this happens, Ana Godinho is privileged in her unique quest to single-handedly explore every detail of the watercolours. A history graduate specialised in archaeology and art history, every time she opens one of the albums she encounters “small wonders”.

In recent years, research has expanded across the Atlantic to Brazil. The researchers at MUNHAC discovered that there is a similar set of drawings in the Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro National Library), whose history remains a mystery. And there were also drawings in the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (National Museum of Rio de Janeiro), which did not survive a fire in 2018. Marta Lourenço wants to join the dots: “When they open the new museum, I would like these albums to be there. It’s shared heritage, after all.”

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