Joaquim Machado de Castro (19 June 1731 – 17 November 1822) was one of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

's foremost

sculptors Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. He wrote extensively on his works and the theory behind them, including a full-length discussion of the statue of King Joseph I entitled ''Descripção analytica da execução da estatua equestre'', Lisbon 1810.

Life

Machado de Castro was born in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

, and was a celebrated figure throughout

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The ''Descripção'' is the artist's detailed comments on the style and execution of his finest work, the equestrian statue of D. José I, erected in 1775 as part of the rebuilding of central Lisbon after the disastrous earthquake of 1755. The stages of construction are illustrated with sections and cross-sections of the horse and rider, views of the statue from different angles, and details of armor and ornamentation. This bronze statue remains one of Lisbon's most important monuments, and dominates one of the major squares of Europe, the

Praça do Comércio The Praça do Comércio (; ) is a large, harbour-facing plaza in Portugal's capital, Lisbon, and is one of the largest in Portugal, with an area of 175 by 175 m (574 by 574 ft), that is, 30,600 m2 (329,000 ft2). Facing the Tagus () to the South, ...

or Terreiro do Paço. In the introduction, Machado de Castro comments on similar works of art in the rest of Europe. Machado de Castro had a famous school and was the Master of many sculptors. He died in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

. In

there is a prestigious art museum named in his honour, the

Machado de Castro National Museum The National Museum Machado de Castro ( pt, Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro) is an art museum in Coimbra, Portugal, named after the renowned Portuguese sculptor Joaquim Machado de Castro. It first opened in 1913 and its latest renovation (200 ...

. 1731 births 1822 deaths Portuguese sculptors Male sculptors People from Coimbra 18th-century Portuguese people 19th-century Portuguese people 19th-century sculptors {{Portugal-sculptor-stub