Unidentified photographer
1850-1854
Cintra [Sintra]

Salted paper print
41.5 x 31.0 cm (image)
 
The Royal Collection
RCIN 2700727
 
Photograph showing the Arches Yard, chapel and clock tower of the Pena National Palace at Sintra, Portugal, with two local men sitting at the top and bottom of a stone staircase, both facing the camera. The site, originally occupied by a small Medieval chapel, grew into a monastery populated by monks of the order of St Jerome until the mid-18th century when severe lighting and then an earthquake reduced the building to ruins. King Ferdinand II of Portugal (1816-85), consort of Queen Maria II of Portugal (1819-53) and first cousin of Queen Victoria as well as of Prince Albert, acquired the abandoned monastery and transformed it, between 1842 and 1854, into a palace with the help of Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege (1777-1855), a German mining engineer, army officer and amateur architect. The palace, considered one of the finest examples of Romantic architecture, was made, together with its park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. In typical Romantic taste, the palace presents a fusion and mixture of eclectic styles, such as Neo-Gothic, Neo-Manueline, Moorish Revival and Reneissance Revival. The square clock tower with bartizans is, for example, a clear reference to the Tower of Belém, a fortified structure built near Lisbon in the early 16th century in the Portuguese Manueline style, named after King Manuel I of Portugal (1469-1521).
 
LL/91094