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/

Since July 26, 2013, it is installed on the ground floor of the building of the Chess Museum.

The Figueiró dos Vinhos Tourist Office of Wines started to work on “Cocoon of Malhoa” following the works of Recovery and Rehabilitation of that property classified as municipal interest.

Thus, Figueiró Wine now has a place with undeniable able to receive visitors and tourists in the area adjacent to the new Museum and Arts Center, allowing a clear strengthening of Cultural Tourism.

The town consists of three neighbourhoods: Praia (along the beach), Sítio (an old village, on top of a cliff) and Pederneira (another old village, on a hilltop). Praia and Sítio are linked by the Nazaré Funicular, a funicular railway.

The earliest settlements were in Pederneira and in Sítio, above the beach. They provided the inhabitants with refuge against raids by Viking, later French, English and Dutch pirates, that lasted until as late as the beginning of the 19th century.

According to the Legend of Nazaré, the town derives its name from a small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, a Black Madonna, brought by a monk in the 4th century from Nazareth, Holy Land, to a monastery near the city of Mérida, Spain. The statue was brought to its current place in 711 by another monk, Romano, accompanied by Roderic, the last Visigoth king of today’s Portugal. After their arrival at the seaside they decided to become hermits. The monk lived and died in a small natural grotto, on top of a cliff above the sea. After his death and according to the monk’s wishes, the king buried him in the grotto. Roderic left the statue of the Black Madonna in the grotto on an altar.

The first church in Sítio was built over the grotto to commemorate a miraculous intervention in 1182 by the Virgin Mary, which saved the life of the 12th-century Portuguese knight Dom Fuas Roupinho (possibly a templar) while he was hunting deer one morning in a dense fog. This episode is usually referred to as the Legend of Nazaré. In memory of the miracle he had a chapel (Capela da Memória) built over the small grotto, where the miraculous statue had been left by king Roderic after the monk’s death. Beside the chapel, on a rocky outcrop 110 meters above the Atlantic, one can still see the mark made in the rock by one of the hooves of Dom Fuas’ horse. This Church of Nazareth, high on the rocky outcrop over Pederneira bay, was noted as a landmark in sailors’ manuals.

In 1377, King Fernando I of Portugal founded a new more spacious church which was totally transformed between the 16th and 19th centuries. The Church of Nossa Senhora da Nazaré is a rich baroque building, with splendid tiles on its interior. Behind and above the main altar visitors can see and venerate the miraculous statue of our Lady of Nazaré.

Nazaré has become a popular tourist attraction, advertising itself internationally as a picturesque seaside village. Located on the Atlantic coast, it has long sandy beaches (considered by some to be among the best beaches in Portugal), with lots of tourists in the summer. The town used to be known for its traditional costumes worn by the fishermen and their wives who wore a traditional headscarf and embroidered aprons over seven flannel skirts in different colours. These dresses can still occasionally be seen.

Human occupation on Berlenga Grande (the only habitable island) dates back to antiquity: the islands are referred to in Ptolemy’s Geography as Λονδοβρίς (Londobris).Much later it was referred to as the island of Saturno by Roman geographers, and was visited successively by Muslims, Vikings and pirates/privateers from England and France.

In 1513, with the support of Queen Leonor, monks from the Order of São Jerónimo established a settlement on the island to offer assistance to navigation and victims of frequent shipwrecks. The monastery founded there (the Monastery of the Misericórdia da Berlenga), remained until the 16th century, when disease, lack of communication (due to constant inclement weather) and regular assaults by pirates and privateers (from England and France), forced the monks to abandon their service on the island.

The historic penal colony: the Fort of São João Baptista das Berlengas

After the Portuguese Restoration War, during the reign of King John IV, the Counsel of War determined that the demolition of the monastery ruins, and the use of their rocks to build a coastal defense would help protect the coastal settlements; the Fort of São João Baptista das Berlengas was constructed from the remnants of the monastery ruins. By 1655, it had already, during its construction, resisted an assault by three Barbary coast pirates.

The island’s lighthouse (dubbed Duke of Braganza by locals) was constructed in 1841. In the 20th century a solar panel was installed in the lighthouse’s 29 metres (95 ft) column, providing a 50 kilometres (31 mi) field of vision.

Nowadays, the archipelago has no permanent population.

Berlenga Grande (Portuguese: Ilha da Berlenga) is 1500 metres per 800 metres at 85 metres high. In this small island there are beaches and several caves, its waters are very clean with barrier reefs and vibrant marine life. Part of the island was ripped off in the past, forming a separated part of the island called Ilha Velha (Old Island). In the summer, the island becomes filled with various sorts of flowers. In the larger island (Berlenga Grande) there is an ancient fort and a lighthouse. The fort is now partially converted into a resthouse. As the archipelago has been declared a reservation area due to the local fauna (sea birds, mostly), it is only visited by scientists and, in the summer, by a small number of tourists.

To the north of Berlenga Grande are uninhabitable islets, known for the existence of species of marine birds and a diverse ecosystem: the Estelas and Farilhões-Forcados Islets.

The International Coordinating Council of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), meeting in Dresden (Germany) from 28 June to 1 July, while adding 18 new sites, included the Berlengas to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR): in a statement on 30 June 2011, the list of classified reserves were presented.

The valley is about 1.5 km long and a maximum depth of 100 meters. Why it happens to Sirol the river, a tributary of the River Lys, and is a valley in “cannon” because of the large slope walls, like cliffs, ripping the massive limestone. It is then a narrow canyon and deep, very steep slopes and limestone nature (which facilitates its dissolution by the water of the river), with numerous karst cavities were dug for hundreds of thousands of years by the river and other water lines. The valley is located in the northern end of the Massif Estremadura Limestone, at which point the limestone sink beneath the sediments that characterize the tectonic depression of Leiria. The valley is thus the boundary between this massive and Condeixa-Alvaiázere system.

It is a great geological and biological interest valley also, since the geological formation allowed the preservation of a biological community that is the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean forest, with native species of the region as the cerquinho oak, alder, willow , ash, poplar, vine, executioner, pepper and also the strawberry tree. Fauna we can highlight some birds like chickadees, green-woodpecker, crow-black, round wing eagle, etc.

The Lapedo Valley was once called real forest of Lapedo, and in 1450 King Afonso V ordered its clearing. And if the preservation of this space is possible is because right from that century it was given due importance, being forbidden hunting and cutting of trees. Over time the site was abandoned and was even required the cultivation of land in the valley. Today the landscape remains little humanized, with only three houses dedicated to milling (mill and mills) – in fact were these conditions as unfavorable to the humanization of the site that allowed the conservation of archaeological findings found there, originate from a time when It favored valley occupation.

If today the valley of Lapedo is now known throughout the world is not for their geological value but because of its cultural value associated to the discovery of traces of human occupation in the Paleolithic, having been very important to know the way the life of man’s height and the way ran its territory over thousands of years.

Abrigo do Lagar Velho

By the end of the last century there was no trace of the Paleolithic in the Lis basin. Everything changed with the discoveries made in the Old Mill Haven, located in the west end of the valley on the left bank of the river. This shelter is the largest cavities Lapedo and other karst valleys of Leiria – and which have already been made archaeological discoveries, such as the valley of Curvachia, Lion or Ribeira dos Milagres. Studies show that the shelter has between 20,000 and 30,000 years.

The first cave paintings were discovered in 1998, after of a landowner in the Old Mill shelter have noticed a painting on site, which was later confirmed by Pedro Ferreira. The painting corresponded to two anthropomorphic figures, among other things, painted red, dating from the Chalcolithic or Neolithic. Then Pedro Ferreira invited two archaeologists to explore the place, giving it the most important find in the spot: the boy Lapedo. After this discovery, proceeded to the exploration of the shelter, bringing to the surface thousands of archaeological finds that there have been preserved for thousands of years.

There are about 30,000 years it is estimated that the Lagar Velho was a river beach: the sediments of this age are alluvial and among them was found large animal bones.

Unfortunately before Lapedo boy being discovered, the site suffered a earthworks carried out by this owner of the land, destroying some of the sedimentary sequence of the shelter (thus preventing a relative dating of the finds, or destroying them up). In the Old Mill Haven they found several archaeological remains: faunal remains (bones), coals, chipped lithic artefacts, pebbles, termoclastos, etc. These remains are dated from the Last Maximum Glacier.

Later, soil excavations have discovered remains dating back over 23,000 years, at about 20 square meters, which included calcined faunal remains, charcoal fragments, termoclastos and dozens of burnt bones (deer, roe deer, goat montez, wild boar, chamois, fox, aurochs, horse and rabbit), indicating that it was in that space that the animals were prepared. Three meters side turned out to the so-called “Fireplace Whittle’s” smaller than the first and almost no animal bones, indicating that served to whittle activities of animals and fur processing.

Traces the passage of hunter-gatherers by, almost 10,000 years later, they were deleted by tarterraplanagem shelter, leaving only the Hanging testimony. This is a sedimentary track 60 cm thick and included in the wall of the shelter, extending throughout the valley Lapedo. There has been a cleansing and study a section of it, which allowed us to project the paleo environment about 21,000 years: great instability and erosion episodes of great intensity, with high sedimentation rates. In this stratum also collected 32,000 faunal remains, 6000 chipped artifacts and thousands of fragments of charcoal, termoclastos and burned pebbles.

In the Abrigo do Lagar Velho was created Interpretation Centre Shelter Old Mill, aggregating all the information regarding the discovery. One of the attractions of the interpretation center, opened in early 2008, is the possibility of seeing the boy, whose face was rebuilt by the American anthropologist, Brian Pierson. It can be enjoyed also a replica of the bones found there. The original is in the National Archaeological Museum.

The valley and the site of the old mill shelter (where the boy and other archaeological finds were discovered) is a national monument classification phase and preparing the application of the same UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is the only grave Upper Paleolithic so far discovered in the Iberian Peninsula, with 24.5 thousand years.

Lapedo boy, cross between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon

Lapedo boy was the name given to the fossil of a child found in 1998 in the Abrigo do Lagar Velho of Vale do Lapedo Old Mill Shelter of Lapedo Valley, in the Portuguese city of Leiria.

Boy Lapedo was discovered on November 28, 1998, the day held an expedition to the Old Mill Haven, to study some cave paintings discovered previously.1 Reconstitution of time demonstrates that the place of burial corresponded to an accumulation cone sediment, surrounded by Sirol the river and a possible exsurgência the limestone wall. To bury the child, she had been dug a small pit and burned a pine tree branch. The child was wrapped in a shroud dyed with red ocher (hence the red soil in the grave tone) and extended the pit, his back and slightly tilted to the wall of the shelter. At the neck was still collected a shell dyed ocher, which should be part of a necklace and four deer teeth in the head, which could be part of a kind of cap. The child was still buried with deer meat offerings.

The skeleton measures about 90 cm. The sex of the skeleton is unknown (despite being called “boy”). The skeleton however was not fully intact: the hand, the forearm and the left foot had been displaced, or by an animal digging in the burrow, or the act of discovery; the skull, shoulder and right arm were crushed during the excavation process of the site. The rib cage, spine, pelvis, legs, left arm and right foot, however, were intact and in its original position.

The relevance of this archaeological find, about 24,500 years, is through the fossil that have belonged to a child who might have been born by crossing a Homo neanderthalensis with Homo sapiens, which would reveal that different species of humanoids could third crossed each other and produce offspring. With the Boy Lapedo can also suggest that Neanderthals disappeared, not by fighting, but by interaction between them and the Cro-Magnons and absorption of it.

Today still continue the archaeological and anthropological investigations to the skeleton as well as discussions of their origin, if in fact resulted from the mixture of the two species, or actually belongs to one of them.

You can see a replica of the skeleton in the Old Mill Interpretation Centre, and a boy’s face reconstruction, made by the American anthropologist Brian Pierson. It is planned to build a museum of archeology in St. Augustine Convent in the city of Leiria, which house the original skeleton.

Of the seven wells built only three that remain for their rarity were considered buildings of public interest.

These three rough construction of wells are round inside; however two are octagonal on the outside and one is circular. Are covered with stone vaults flat bell-shaped and the whole was built with black stone region. Each well has a single door, close to east facing, such as to prevent, when the sun is strongest, to enter through the narrow door and melt the snow stored there.

Using ladders, made of rough wood, the men descended to the bottom of these wells – which then had deeper than a dozen meters – and as they were being evicted them baskets with snow were treading this with heavy wooden packs wielding vigorously in the manner of today’s road workers.
Callous, isolated between the walls smoothed by stucco, then covered with straw and fetuses, the snow kept up these large reservoirs until the summer – without a ray of sun you could get.

When it was warm weather, the snow was cut and followed in large blocks to Lisbon. Shipping was done as a first step in ronceiros oxcarts. Only three or four of these large blocks could be loaded in such robust carts and were carefully wrapped in straw, in fetuses, even in burlap or even tucked into crates.

But even so, says the oral testimony that much snow was lost by the path taken through the tortuous paths of the mountain, almost painfully.

Miranda do Corvo made it the first changes of animals and after the cars left for Constance where the land, went to the river to the Palace Square where they were made tasty ice cream for the King and his court, as tasty the Lisbon people sought in the Martinho da Arcada and other cafes.