The Soares dos Reis National Museum is marking King Pedro IV Day, in honour of its founder, in an initiative scheduled for 9 July, with the support of Porto City Council, Anilupa – Associação de Ludotecas do Porto and the publisher By the book.
The day is connected to the historic landing of the liberal troops on Pampelido Beach, in the north of Porto, on 8 July 1832, during the Liberal Wars, the name by which the Portuguese Civil War came to be known.
The programme to commemorate King Pedro IV’s Day begins at 6.30pm with the screening of the short film ‘A nossa arte a espreitar para o infinito’ (Our art peering into infinity), an animation film made by third-year students from the Art School of the Porto Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of Anilupa – Associação de Ludotecas do Porto, as part of the Porto City Council’s Porto de Crianças programme.
At 7pm, there will be a talk by Augusto Moutinho Borges and António Pereira de Lacerda on ‘The Heart of D. Pedro given to the City of Porto by the Count of Campanhã’, and at 7.30pm, there will be a presentation of the work ‘Amélia de Leuchtenberg, Empress of Brazil, Duchess of Bragança’, by Cláudia Thomé Witte.
The first room of the Soares dos Reis National Museum’s long-term exhibition shows, in rotation, elements of the uniforms worn by King Pedro during the civil war. The museum keeps the dolman, the waistcoat, the cap, the cocked hat, the sword, the lanyard, the boldrié (a belt with a talim for suspending a sword), the eyeglass and the map holder.
The Soares dos Reis National Museum has its origins in the Museum of Paintings and Prints and other Fine Arts objects, created in 1833 by Pedro IV of Portugal, the first Emperor of Brazil, to safeguard the assets sequestered from the absolutists and convents abandoned during the Portuguese Civil War.