Portrait of D. Afonso Furtado de Mendonça - c. 1561-1630 - Rector of the University of Coimbra (1597), Bishop of Guarda, Bishop of Coimbra - Count of Arganil, Archbishop of Braga and Archbishop of Lisbon oil on canvas with inscription P[AR]A O ILL[USTRÍSSI]MO S[ENH]OR D. AFFONSO FURTADO DE MENDO[N]SA ARCEB[ISP]O DE L[ISBO]A A 1597 [D.Afonso Furtado de Mendonça was the son of Jorge Furtado de Mendonça, Commander of entries, and Dona Mécia Henriques] Portuguese school 18th C. (1st quarter) minor faults on canvas, minor faults on the pictorial layer Dimensões (altura x comprimento x largura) - 120 x 161 cm Notes: "Two unpublished portraits from the Archbishops Gallery of the Palace of Mitra Nuno Saldanha This is an extremely interesting pair of portraits that were part of the primitive Archbishops series, of which only the seven paintings currently found in the Patriarchate were known to date. from Lisbon, in S. Vicente de Fora. The original set of thirteen portraits of the Archbishops of Lisbon, were placed by the first Patriarch, Dom Tomás de Almeida, in the former Palace of Mitra, arranged in two rooms, on the occasion of the renovation that was carried out there. There is no doubt about the original location, as the canvases are described and referred to from 1763, by Batista de Castro, to 1827, by Joaquim José Ferreira, in the inventory of Paço de Marvilla:  "Segunda Casa – Sinco Painéis de oito palmos de Largo e seis de Alto molduras pretas pintadas em panno dos Retractos dos Arcebispos de Lisboa [...] Terceira Casa – oito painéis de oito palmos de Largo e seis de Alto Molduras pretas e Pintura em panno dos Retratos dos Arcebispos de Lisboa e achando nelles o Cardeal Regidore, Cardeais Infantes". The list of portraits was as follows (in chronological order, from the eighth to the twentieth centuries): Cardinal D. Jorge da Costa (1464-1500) Martinho da Costa (1500-1521) Cardinal Infante D. Afonso of Portugal (1523-1540) Fernando de Menezes Coutinho e Vasconcelos (1540-1564) Cardinal Infante D. Henrique of Portugal (1564-1570) Jorge de Almeida (1570-1585) Miguel de Castro (1586-1625) Afonso Furtado de Mendonça (1626-1630) João Manuel de Ataíde (1633) Rodrigo da Cunha (1635-1643) António de Mendonça (1670-1675) Luís de Sousa (1675-1702) João de Sousa (1703-1710) From 1905 onwards, we have news of its placement in the Patriarchal Relation, according to the report by Monsignor Alfredo Elviro dos Santos, regarding the existing collection there, in a letter to Diário de Notícias newspaper dated October 4th of that year. However, the transfer of paintings from Marvila to S. Vicente was not done directly. The set went through several vicissitudes, being sold several times, and in parts, dispersing among different owners. We know that four of these portraits were acquired by engineer Jorge Lobo d'Ávila da Graça, in the early 20th century, to decorate the Galvão-Mexia/Pimenta palace, in Campo Grande, which he had bought in 1914. Years later, in 1957, when he decides to leave that house of his, they return to auction, at the great auction he held for its contents, in November of that year. Two of them would join the rest, in S. Vicente, that of Cardinal Infante D. Henrique, and that of Cardinal Infante D. Afonso (acquired in 2010). ) The remaining two, from the Jorge Graça collection, are precisely those for sale, that of D. Afonso Furtado de Mendonça (Rector of the University of Coimbra, Bishop of Guarda, Bishop of Coimbra - Count of Arganil, Archbishop of Braga and Archbishop of Lisbon), and that of D. João Manoel (Bishop of Viseu, Bishop of Coimbra-Count of Arganil, Archbishop of Lisbon and Viceroy of Portugal), respectively, the fifteenth and sixteenth archbishops of Lisbon, still in its black frames, referred to in 1827. We do not know the author of the original series, probably executed after 1710, the date of the death of the last archbishop figured there, D. João de Sousa. However, it is due to the important painter Vieira Lusitano (1699-1783), a considerable renovation of part of it, por ordem do Senhor Rey D. João V", as Batista de Castro refers (Castro, 1763: 481). In addition to the additions, especially accessories and sets, we do not neglect the eventual execution of a significant part of some of them, given the stylistic affinities, as well as the elaborate symbolic compositions, so much to Vieira's taste. This series should also be part of this series, although it is not an archbishop, a portrait of Dom Tomás de Almeida himself, of which there is still a drawing of the Lusitano in blood, at the National Museum of Ancient Art, with the same proportions and type of attributes , which we find in the portraits of the archbishops." Cabral Moncada Leilões registers and thanks Prof. Dr. Nuno Saldanha fot the historical and artistic framework of the works in matter.