Bordallo Pinheiro

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Arte Bordallo Swallow 3 (Special Order)

In 1896, Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro registers the patent of its ceramic swallows probably realizing that it could become a true Portuguese symbol. He wasn’t wrong, the artist’s flights of swallows started inhabiting houses, in Portugal and in several countries where Portuguese people lived (easy to identify by the swallows). Earthenware. Hand crafted and painted in Portugal.

Portugal's most beloved cartoonist of the 19th century, Bordallo Pinheiro was famous for creating the character "Ze Povinho," a rustic laborer who was kind to his friends and contemptuous of those with money and power. His artistic style blends the honesty realism of late 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement with the dramatic, even grotesque, features of Goya's earlier paintings.

In 1884, he and his son founded an eponymous factory in Caldas da Rainha along the Portuguese coast to create whimsical and naturalistic faience pieces based on his art. Because of the special minerals in the local soil and the skills of the craftsmen in the area, Caldas da Rainha is well-known as the capital of Portuguese pottery. Today the factory takes Pinheiro's original style into the 21st century with satirical portraits of modern day celebrities, while continuing its old fashioned, made by hand tradition of Portuguese pottery making.