Behold what everyone seems to want but as soon as they get there, they fall!

Felix Mendelssohn

German composer Felix Mendelssohn dies on the 3 th November 1847 after a series of heart attacks.

Do you have a favourite historical or living character that you would like to have it portrayed?  Talk to me!

Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin

Born in Paris on the 2 November 1699, Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin would become one of the leading artists on still lives of his time!

This figure was inspired in one of his lovely self-portraits.

Do you have a favourite historical or living character that you would like to have it portrayed?  Talk to me!

1755 Lisbon's earthquake

256 years ago Lisbon's earthquake was felt through all Europe and north Africa.
Being All Saints Day people gathered massively on churches when, at around 9.30 a.m the earth trembled in such violence that it took minutes to ruin what once was considered to be the greatest capital in the Renascence period!

In terror and thinking on sailing away through Tagus river they were struck by an tsunami which destroyed not only the Royal Ribeira Palace but the newly built Opera House and several other palaces, churches and monasteries. All the riches gathered throught times, precious libraries, all gone ...

With the Royal Family absent, people took faith upon a newly appointed minister whose name was Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo.

Born in Lisbon,  from a lower nobility class, studied in Coimbra, got married in Lisbon and in 1738 onwards he became ambassador in the UK and later on Vienna were he not only got married a second time with a very prominent member of an aristocratic family - the Von Daun - but also gathered efforts to study.
Not very well succeeded at the eyes of the reigning monarch, D.João V,  Sebastião José came back  after the later's death due to the new monarch's sympathies and also his mother, an Austrian Archduchess who was very fond of his wife, Ernstina Von Daun.

Scorned by the Portuguese high nobility, this "squire" would raise into such a degree of power that through despotic methods, the later known as Count of Oeiras (title given in 1759) and Marquess of Pombal (title given in 1769) become not only the major figure of King Joseph I's reign but a key figure for the development of Portugal.

My figure was inspired by the Marquess's portrait by Van Loo.

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D.Maria Pia , Queen of Portugal

On this very day, at the royal palace of Turim (Italy) a new Savoy princess was borne!   54 years earlier her great aunt Marie Antoinette was sent to guilhotine!

Borned within the luxuriant court of the Princes of Piedmont, later Kings of Sardinia (in 1849) and future Kings of the united Italy (in 1861), princess Maria after being baptised having Pope Pius IX as her godfather, had an normal education untill 1862 when she was sought in marriage by D. Luis I King of Portugal.

If first Portugal felt rather uneasy with the idea of having as Queen a daughter of a excommunicate King, others thought that it was a good sign in foreign policies once Italy was considered as the one and truly democratic country in Europe by that time!
All settled the Queen D.Maria Pia arrived in Lisboa on the 6th October.

If shy at the beginning, the Queen showed to be very devoted to her husband. Apart formal duties as Kings, they both had a very tranquil life at the Royal Palace d'Ajuda (Lisbon) where they're two sons were raised - Prince D. Carlos future king to be and Infante D. Afonso, duke of Porto.

It was after the birth of the last prince, in 1865 that everything seemed to change. King Luis seemed no longer interested on his Queen which, day by day,  started to develop crisis of anxiety and constant nervous breakdowns.
The King was said to have several mistresses as the Queen also started her own love affairs! She, as her ancestor in France, became Lisbon's Madame Deficit spending money on partys, masquerade balls, travels, fashion and other priceless objects to decorate her "doll house" Palacio d'Ajuda. The scandal was so much so that someone proposed that the Queen should be sent back to Italy but suddenly old good King D. Luis felt ill, the couple reconciled and D. Maria Pia turned to be he's greatest support until he surrendered his soul on the 19th October 1889...

Despite all, the Queen who once said "if you want a Queen, you have to pay her", never forgot her duties towards the less fortunate. In 1878 she opened a day care centre for children and never ceased to wander  wherever she thought her people needed help like the floods country wide during winter in 1876 or on the famous occasion of the fire at Baquet's theatre in Porto where she traveled wearing black, giving money and comfort to it's victims. For all of that the people still today call her "The Angel of Charity".

On the other hand, if always apparently alienated from politics, she couldn't stop herself by expressing the disgust towards Marechal Saldanha "If I were the King, I'd have him shot!!"

As Queen Dowager she continued her social projects and acted as regent in two occasion.

With the 1908 regicide where her son King Carlos I and her grandson Prince Luis Felipe were shot
, her grief was so strong  that she was never able to recover and during the short reign of her second grand child D.Manuel II she became retired living with her son D. Afonso on her fairytale palace d'Ajuda until 1910  when she was forced to go into exile with the rest of the royal family ending her days in Italy where she died one year after, 5 of July 1911.
Suffering from dementia or not, the truth is that on her deathbed she asked to be turned towards Portugal! Her remains never came back ...

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pictures of a sketch

Remembering

A long time ago I got my first doll comission from someone who asked me to make one of his antcestors

You can also do so by 150 euros per figure plus shipping costs. An antcestor, or even your own portrait on epoch garments, why not?