JOSÉ MALHOA - 1855-1933 The black whitewasher ("The Duke of the Cities of Africa"?) oil on canvas relined, small old restoration, minor paint faults. signed (1886) Dimensões (altura x comprimento x largura) - 45 x 37 cm Notes: "Well documented in various literary and iconographic sources from the 18th century.", The "Black whitewasher" was one of the most popular figures on the streets of 19th-century Lisbon, although he can also be found in other cities in the country, as well as in Brazil. According to António Francisco Barata, in 1877, they lived in the winding streets of the Mocambo neighbourhood, especially in a narrow alley next to the Convent of the Trinas, with small, one-story houses, or mezzanine floors, very well whitewashed, which gave the alley a certain cheerfulness. By the 19th century, it was more common to find them in Rossio Square, where customers waited, or circulating through the city with their cane and the "lime bucket," of which several engravings and illustrations are known. Malhoa reveals himself in this painting as an eminent author of "Perpetua chronica pitoresca dos costumes d’uma cidade ou d’um povo", as Monteiro Ramalho called him, regarding the criticism of the sixth salon of "Grupo do Leão" of 1886. Despite the impossibility of discerning a date beneath the signature, we believe it may be the painting "O duque das cidades d’Africa," which is listed in the catalogue of that exhibition, alongside the well-known "O Bando de S. Jorge". The painting is therefore part of Malhoa's growing interest in representing typical and popular figures from the city of Lisbon, which began in 1879 with the "Lottery Ticket Seller" or the "Fishmonger," and continued with other traditional professional activities, in a trajectory that would reach its peak in the famous "The Fado" in 1910. The painting's peculiar title, given what it depicts, is not entirely unusual, considering the well-known satirical nature of some of his works, imbuing them with a critical and ironic character that goes beyond mere documentary, cultural, and ethnographic importance. Note the "aristocratic posture" with which the whitewasher is represented, posing and holding the cane as if it were a staff or spear, in a genre painting turned portrait, quite different from the usual image of the humble, anonymous worker walking the streets of Lisbon. Supporting this hypothesis is the fact that the painter presented, in that same exhibition, several works depicting Black people, as Monteiro Ramalho reported, referring to a Study of a Head present there: "o pintor enthusiasta sympathisou decididamente com a carapinhosa raça negra". This was also undoubtedly influenced by the publication, the following year, of the famous Album of Portuguese Customs, edited by David Corazzi and illustrated by various artists, such as Alfredo Roque Gameiro, Columbano Bordallo Pinheiro, Condeixa, Manuel de Macedo, Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro, and Malhoa himself. Among the images of occupations performed by Africans in Lisbon, Júlio César Machado and Fialho de Almeida describe precisely three.: "O Preto Caiador", "O  Preto de S. Jorge", and "A Preta do Mexilhão". We are, without a doubt, faced on several levels with a painting of great value and particular interest. On the one hand, for the understanding of Malhoa's work, through the previously unseen image – now recovered from the public neglect to which it was subjected for more than a century – and for the beautiful example of the evolution of his career as a "genre" painter, but also for its documentary, social and anthropological character, through the depiction of daily life and customs in late 19th-century Lisbon. Cabral Moncada Leilões acknowledges and thanks Professor Nuno Saldanha for the historical and artistic context of the work in question. 2. Work referenced in SALDANHA, Nuno - "José Malhoa Catálogo Raisonné". Lisbon: Scribe, 2012, p. 107, no. CRJM/0306, where it was found dated 1886, and at the time of publication its whereabouts were unknown.