In a quiet bit of garden that is part of the park behind Lisbon’s City Museum, we were surprised to find a fantasyland. True enough, we had just walked through a flock of peacocks that wander in another part of the park, but coming face-to-face with a giant grasshopper was…different.
As were the rest of the creatures, from alligators to an ocean of crustaceans in a (temporarily) dry fountain. They were all around us, with no explanation given, beyond the name on the garden wall. We were left to look it up later.
When we did, we found that the name was the clue: Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (yes, the wall has an extra ‘l’) was the author of the bees, toads, mushrooms, cats, and all the rest. They were created for Portugal’s exhibit at the Paris exhibition of 1889, the same one that brought us the Eiffel Tower.
Bordalo Pinheiro was the son and brother of painters, but his own work veered off into illustration and caricature. He edited humorous and politically critical magazines, invented Ze Povinho, Portugal’s equivalent of John Q. Public.
These works grew out of his interest in ceramics as well as his cartooning. He started a ceramics factory, still in business, in 1885, where these were made. The originals had long disappeared, but the original casts still existed, and were used to create these and more for the museum.
What we didn’t discover in time is that there is a museum dedicated entirely to his work, on the other side of the Campo Grande from the City Museum. Definitely on my agenda for a future visit!
I like finding little treasures like this when traveling! That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?