Hi,
First thing today after a stop at an outlook over the city is the tile museum. There is tile everywhere here in Lisbon. There was a whole wall of tiles depicting the the city before the devastating earthquake. It includes the sailing ships that brought the country so many riches and allowed them to become colonizers. The following images are just part of the whole picture.
Below you can see a real view and a tile view of the city skyline.
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In these last 2 you see the same view of the city before and after the earthquake. Can you see the square building on the bottom right in both? The Can Can - yesterday's lunch place is in the corner of that building.
The tile museum is of course in an old monastery.
With a very Baroque church...
With some old and new testament scenes. Here is Moses talking to God from the Old Testament.
There is a Moorish /Islamic background to Portugal. Evidently it sometimes was under Islamic rule and so the tiles reflect that. Amazing what you can learn about a culture through its art. Here is an example of Moorish designs.
Is there a kind of Hieronymus Bosch quality to the fish in this next one? Love them.
For all the animal lovers I will include a few more of my favorites.
Ok enough fun with the tiles. Now on to lunch past the viaduct.
It was a huge buffet feast with scrambled eggs. My favorite. But of course there was tons of fish and many of the group members took full advantage. Oysters anyone? Shrimp?
On to the Ajuda Royal Palace where there is an artist in residence who does jewelry and fashion design.
There were lots of rooms with tapestries and I will spare you too many images of those. They were beautiful but the opulence was over the top. It made me kind of glad we never had royalty. There is just so much to have to keep up on if there are palaces and summer houses and so forth and now there isn't even a royal family. Humm......
This room is still used for state dinners. There were lots of chandeliers throughout the palace of all sorts. They pride themselves on the collection.
The artist in residence is Valentin Quaresma. He recycles parts of cars to make his work.
Here is some of his jewelry which doesn't always use car parts but is alluring with its accumulations of materials.
Next was a visit to the Porto Jewelry Galleries (a group of 4 galleries came from Porto and set up in a lovely space) which did not hold much interest for me so skipping on to a visit with the jeweler Kukas who is a Portuguese legend of design and jewelry. There was a little display of her work in the lobby of an inn owned by one of her collectors Filipa Fortunato. Looks like a charming boutique hotel. And Kukas was a perfect elder legend.
Susan Beech bought one of her pieces and wanted an image with her so here is Cristina Filipe (winner of the Susan Beech Award) with Kukas and Susan.
And now on to the highlight of the day. Marta Costa Reis, a former lawyer and now a jeweler invited the group to visit her at her house in the country which is - you guessed it- in a monastery. Really beautiful with a couple of jewelry shows set up in little chapels or meditation rooms tucked into the building. Enjoy.
Our hostess Marta
The driveway with an old relic of an earlier day in the main turnaround area
Entrance to the house on the left and door into a small chapel with a show on the right
A small group of votives in the show in the small chapel
There was another show with the work of Carlos Silva in a small meditation space.
The grounds
The pool
The tennis court and beyond are the stables
The living room with Marta's personal jewelry collection on the table
The delicious dinner
The amazing number of desserts
And finally as if that weren't enough... Marta asked a Fado singer to perform for us. It is a beautiful lamenting song that belongs to the Portuguese. It was riveting. Sorry I can capture the sound for you. Look it up if you want a treat.
It was a long day with lots of variety. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
xox,
Susan
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