João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos, 1st Count of Ameal

João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos, 1st Count of Ameal (Coimbra

Coimbra

Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...

, February 5, 1847–July 13, 1920) was a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, art collector, maecenas

Patrón

Patrón is a luxury brand of tequila produced in Mexico and sold in hand-blown, individually numbered bottles.Made entirely from Blue Agave "piñas" , Patrón comes in five varieties: Silver, Añejo, Reposado, Gran Patrón Platinum and Gran Patrón Burdeos. Patrón also sells a tequila-coffee blend known...

and humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

, renowned chiefly for having assembled one of Portugal

Portugal

's largest and most important private art collections, as well as what was at the time the largest private library in the country. His collection is also famous for having been auctioned en masse after his death in 1920, leading to the largest auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

recorded in the Iberian peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

and one of the largest in Europe at the time. Several pieces formerly belonging to him have later been incorporated into the collections of the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

, the Prado and the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon.

Early life

João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos was born in Coimbra

Coimbra

to João Correia Ayres de Campos, a renowned lawyer and amateur archeologist from a family of the lower nobility, and his wife Leonor de Sá Correia. As a young man, he studied Law at the University of Coimbra, graduating in 1868, and joined the Partido Regenerador, a conservative political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

opposed to the Partido Progressista during the Liberal Monarchy

Liberalism in Portugal

This article gives an overview of liberalism in Portugal. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme...

. In 1876, João married Maria Amélia de Sande Mexia Vieira da Mota, Countess of Juncal. They had four children:

João de Sande Magalhães Mexia Salema Ayres de Campos, 2nd Count of Ameal (1877)
Maria de Sande Mexia Ayres de Campos (1880)
Jorge de Sande Mexia Ayres de Campos (1886)
Pedro de Sande Mexia Ayres de Campos Vieira da Mota, 2nd Count of Juncal (1889)

Political career

Rising to prominence within the local chapter of the Partido Regenerador, João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos was elected mayor of his hometown of Coimbra in 1886, and later appointed deputy at the Portuguese National Parliament.

He was created Count of Ameal

Count of Ameal

Count of Ameal is a Portuguese title of nobility. It was created in 1901 by Carlos I, king of Portugal for João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos, 1st Count of Ameal.- References :...

by king Charles I of Portugal in 1901, upon his retirement from active political life. To embellish his coat-of-arms he chose the motto Ars Super Omnia (Art Above All Things).

The art collection

A wealthy land-owner whose property had substantially increased in value due to the city's quick urban expansion, João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos began to amass his large collection in the 1880s. Having bought the 15th-century buildings of the former monastery and college of S. Tomás, in Coimbra, he transformed them into a large palace of neoclassical

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

design. The Count then filled its rooms (most of which still retained their original gothic form in spite of the building's external neoclassical appearance) with precious furniture, Old Master

Old Master

"Old Master" is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period...

paintings and about 30.000 rare books.

Among his collection of painting, there was one canvas by Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

(Saint John the Baptist), one large drawing by Rembrandt (Head of a Man), a large Glorification of the Virgin by Rubens

Rubens

Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens , the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens (composer) Rubens is...

, a Portrait of a Man by Philippe de Champagne and two portraits of saints by Zurbarán. The collection further contained two canvases by Murillo

Bartolomé Estéban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...

, three by Greuze, four by Ribera and one canvas and four aquatint

Aquatint

Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...

s by Goya, as well as a large collection of watercolors by Turner

J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...

and Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

.

The collection also comprised a considerable selection of oil paintings and drawings by Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic.-Early life:...

, an artist then virtually unknown in Portugal but one of the Count's favourite painters.

An admirer of contemporary Portuguese painters, particularly of the Realist

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

school that was then at the height of its popularity, the Count of Ameal also owned a large selection of canvases and drawings by José Malhoa

José Malhoa

José Vital Branco Malhoa, known simply as José Malhoa was a Portuguese painter....

, Columbano

Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro

Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro , who is usually referred to as Columbano, was a Portuguese Realist painter...

and António Silva Porto

António Silva Porto

António de Carvalho da Silva Porto was a Portuguese naturalist painter.Born in Porto, he studied there under João António Correia and T. Furtado, then continued his studies in Paris and Rome....

. Of the latter, he possessed the famous The Boy and His Sheep, now in the Soares dos Reis Museum in Porto

Porto

Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

.

Towards the end of his life, the Count came to assemble a large collection of gothic sculptutre and painting, as well as one of late-medieval and early-modern Portuguese religious painting (the latter chiefly purchased after the suppression of the property of the religious orders by the Republicans

Portuguese First Republic

The Portuguese First Republic spans a complex 16 year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926...

in 1910).

Another important part of the Count's collection was his selection of Islamic faience

Faience

Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated with Faenza in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip...

, mostly Iberian

Iberian Peninsula

and late-medieval.

Upon the Count's death in 1920, his deeply-religious widow decided to sell most of the collection - probably because the family was starting to struggle with financial difficulties due to some of the Count's last and more costly purchases - as well as to donate the palace that housed it to a religious order. For that purpose, a major auction was hastily organized in July 1921, the biggest event of the kind in the history of auctioneering in Portugal. Both the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

and the Louvre

Louvre

sent emissaries to the event, the latter having acquired a large amount of porcelain and most of the Count's collection of Islamic faience.

Death and burial

The 1st Count of Ameal died in Coimbra

Coimbra

in 1920, aged 74. He had designed for himself, his wife and his descendants an exquisite octagonal gothic pantheon in Coimbra's cemetery of Conchada, which had been completed in 1899. The 10-meter-tall monument, comprising a relatively small funeral chapel at ground level and a crypt with six floors beneath, has been considered one of the masterpieces of Portuguese gothic revival. Bearing a number of allusions to Dante

DANTE

Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

's Divine Comedy, the structure is adorned with eagles, griffins and lillies, its spire being topped by an over-lifesize statue of Beatrice

Beatrice Portinari

Beatrice "Bice" di Folco Portinari was a Florentine woman known as the muse of the poet Dante Alighieri. Beatrice was the principal inspiration for Dante's Vita Nuova, and also appears as his guide in the Divine Comedy in the last book, Paradiso, and in the last four canti of Purgatorio...

.

It is possible that the building also contains an esoteric meaning, its crypts being arranged around a spiral stairwell reminiscent of the so called pit of initiation at the contemporary Regaleira estate, in Sintra

Sintra

Sintra is a town within the municipality of Sintra in the Grande Lisboa subregion of Portugal. Owing to its 19th century Romantic architecture and landscapes, becoming a major tourist centre, visited by many day-trippers who travel from the urbanized suburbs and capital of Lisbon.In addition to...

.
The works on this monument were led by sculptor Costa Mota Tio, who had been responsible for the revivalist

Revivalist artist

A revivalist artist or revivalist band is a musical group, singer, or musician dedicated to reviving interest in a musical genre from an earlier era....

reconstruction of the eastern wing of the Jerónimos Monastery

Jerónimos Monastery

The Hieronymites Monastery is located near the shore of the parish of Belém, in the municipality of Lisbon, Portugal...

in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

.

The pantheon is still in use by the Count's descendants today.

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