‘Picturesque Review of the Costume of the Portuguese’ is an album of twenty one gouache sketches from about 1836, owned and hosted by the National Library of Portugal.

The only background appears to be a circumstantial relationship with another album from the same time period, but the identity of the artist is not known.

I suspect that the album was produced by a Portuguese artist as a memento for sale or as a gift for a British tourist. The sketches are sympathetic and most I would describe as quaint portraits. Even the true caricatures are gently humorous without any hint of malevolence. The language in the title and in some of the captions is just a little skewed or unusual, more likely associated with a non-native speaker, to my mind. I may of course be completely wrong. It’s a sweet little series in any event.

All of the images above have been fairly extensively – but not severely – cleaned up, including removal of the library stamps. There was quite a bit of age related background staining.

retirado daqui: BiblioOdyssey