Domingos Sequeira’s drawing ‘The Death of Camões’, on deposit at the Soares dos Reis National Museum, is part of the exhibition Epic and Tragic – Camões and the Romanticists, opening on 11 July at the National Museum of Ancient Art.
Curated by Alexandra Markl and Raquel Henriques da Silva, the exhibition takes place as part of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões (1524-1580), the greatest Portuguese poet, author of Os Lusíadas, inspired by The Aeneid by Virgil, which tells the story of Portugal from a mythical perspective, centred on the voyage of Vasco da Gama.
‘Since the end of the 18th century, Camões and some of the themes of Os Lusíadas have been increasingly publicised internationally, contextualised in a pre-romantic culture. The poet’s adventurous life itself became a literary and artistic motif. It is in this context that Francisco Vieira Portuense made a series of compositions to illustrate each of the poem’s, in a project for a great edition. This publication would never be published, but at the beginning of 1817 a careful and extensively illustrated monumental edition of Os Lusíadas appeared in France, on the initiative of the Morgado de Mateus.
During these same years, several Portuguese creators, all living abroad and almost simultaneously, dedicated celebratory works to Camões: Domingos Bomtempo dedicated a Requiem Mass to him in 1817, and Almeida Garrett composed an extensive poem, published in 1825. Coincidentally, in 1824, Domingos Sequeira presented the painting ‘The Death of Camões’ at the Paris Salon, which he then sent to Rio de Janeiro, offering it to the recent emperor Pedro I (Pedro IV of Portugal). The painting was later lost, but there is a set of preparatory drawings that evoke the poet in the last moments of his life, receiving the terrible news of D. Sebastião’s defeat at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir. ‘At least I die with the country!’ he would exclaim.
The set of objects on display in the temporary exhibition marks the beginning of romanticism in Portuguese art, which was committed to celebrating national history and its heroes. And Camonian themes, including those of the poet’s last moments, continued to be reflected in by Portuguese and European painters throughout the 19th century’.