Bordallo Pinheiro Factory of Artistic Earthenware has been, for over a century, responsible for the design of a gallery of utilitarian and decorative ceramic pieces that have become a worldwide artistic reference.

Description of the Company

Bordallo Pinheiro Factory of Artistic Earthenware was created with the purpose of revitalizing the traditional arts of ceramics, crossing them with the modernity of many styles that foretell the future, but, above all, with the originality of its creator, Rafael Bordallo Pinheiro. Thus was born the artistic production of pieces that are, until today, inseparable from our imagination and cultural references of a universal nature.

By still using most of the centuries-old techniques in the reproduction of models, Bordallo Pinheiro Factory of Artistic Earthenware continues to recover an irreplaceable legacy. At the same time, and animated by the same pioneering spirit, it is an innovative company, creating contemporary products and enhancing its prestige in the various markets where the brand is present.

Bordallo Pinheiro operates in a factory located in Caldas da Rainha, where the company’s headquarters are located, and has an office in Lisbon.

He was a disciple of his father, the painter Manuel Maria Bordalo Pinheiro. His mother was D. Maria Augusta do Ó Carvalho Prostes and his brother the painterColumbano. He started publishing illustrations and caricatures in humoristic magazines such as A Berlinda and O Calcanhar de Aquiles, frequently demonstrating a sarcastic humour with a political or social message.

In 1875 he travelled to Brazil to work as an illustrator and cartoonist for the publication Mosquito (and later,another publication called O Besouro), which was also employing the Italian/Brazilian illustrator Angelo Agostini, until then the unrivaled cartooning authority of Brazil. Pinheiro eventually became editor of other humorous, politically critical magazines. His fame as a caricaturist led the Illustrated London News to become one of his collaborators.

In 1875, Bordalo Pinheiro created the cartoon character Zé Povinho (literal translation: Joe Little People), a Portuguese everyman, portrayed as a poor peasant. Zé Povinho became, and still is, as an iconic symbol, the most popular character in Portugal.

In Zé Povinho, as in his other works, Bordalo Pinheiro’s drawing style was innovative and influential, making extensive use of onomatopoeia, graphical signs (such as those to used represent movement), strong images (the manguito), and his unique style of mixing punctuation marks, such as brackets, with drawing.

In 1885, he founded a ceramics factory in Caldas da Rainha, where he created many of the pottery designs for which this city is known. The factory is still in business.

The Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/bordallopinheiro.official

The Museum in Lisbon - http://museubordalopinheiro.cm-lisboa.pt/

The museum is located in the city of Caldas da Rainha, Leiria, Portugal, in the middle of the D. Carlos I park.

José Vital Branco Malhoa, known simply as José Malhoa (Caldas da Rainha, 28 April 1855 - Figueiró dos Vinhos, 26 October 1933) was a Portuguese painter.

Malhoa was, with Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, the leading name in Portuguese naturalist painting, in the second half of the 19th century. He painted often popular scenes and subjects, like his two most famous paintings, The Drunks (1907) and Fado (1910). He always remained faithful to the naturalist style, but in some of his works, there are impressionist influences, like in his Autumn (1918), that can be considered as an “impressionist exercise”.

He saw at the end of his life, the inauguration of the José Malhoa Museum, in Caldas da Rainha.

Malhoa’s House, also known as the Dr. Anastácio-Gonçalves House-Museum, in Lisbon, was originally built in 1905 as a residence and studio for the artist. It was bought by Dr. Anastácio-Gonçalves, an art collector, a year before the painter’s death, and it became a museum in 1980, showcasing several items from his collection, namely works from Portuguese painters of the 19th and 20th century.