Art and Patronage in Eighteenth-Century Portugal

This important contribution to eighteenth-century European studies is the first to explore the relationships between artists, patrons and connoisseurs in Portugal in the period. Angela Delaforce describes the splendor and magnificent ceremonial of the court of the Braganca monarch, Dom Joao V, adorned with works of art he commissioned from the leading masters in Italy and France and made possible by the fabulous wealth arriving from colonial Brazil. The author has gathered together a wealth of previously unpublished archival material discovered in Portugal and Italy to trace the development of these fascinating patterns of international patronage.