Simplício Rodrigues de Sá ( , São Nicolau Tolentino, Cape Verde, — 9 March 1839,

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

) was a Portuguese-born painter and art professor who spent most of his career in Brazil.

Biography

Simplício Rodrigues de Sá was born in the parish of São Nicolau Tolentino (now part of the municipality of São Domingos) just north of the city of Praia in the island of

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

He studied in Lisbon and emigrated to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1809. Seven years later, he became a follower of

Jean Baptiste Debret Jean-Baptiste Debret (; 18 April 1768 – 28 June 1848) was a French Painting, painter, who produced many valuable lithographs depicting the people of Brazil. Debret won the second prize at the 1798 Salon de Paris, Salon des Beaux Arts. Biograph ...

, joining his group, the French Artistic Mission and helping to lay the foundations for what would become the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes in 1826.Brief biographies
@ the Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural. He was also named a

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

and a private art tutor to Princess Maria da Glória, the future Queen of Portugal. For his services, Emperor Pedro I awarded him the Order of Christ in 1826, and named him a Knight in the

Order of the Southern Cross Emperor Pedro I of Brazil founded the National Order of the Southern Cross ( pt, Ordem Nacional do Cruzeiro do Sul) as a Brazilian order of chivalry on 1 December 1822. The order aimed to commemorate the independence of Brazil (7 September 18 ...

. In 1831, when Debret returned to Paris, De Sá took his place as head of the History Painting Department at the Imperial Academy. In 1833, he became drawing master for the child-Emperor Pedro II and his sisters. After the death of in 1834, he took over the Department of Design at the Academy. He also organized the first two major public exhibitions held there, in 1829 and 1830, although his first solo exhibition appears to have been given posthumously. He worked in several genres, including religious works for the Church of the "Ordem Terceira de São Francisco da Penitência", but is largely remembered as a portrait painter who focused on members of the Royal Family. He was apparently blind at the time of his death.

References

External links

1780s births 1839 deaths Brazilian painters Portrait painters Migrants from Portugal to Portuguese Brazil Court painters People from Santiago, Cape Verde {{Brazil-painter-stub