MASP

Allegory of Painting on Ceramic is one of the largest canvasses that Columbano painted, only surpassed by the “Lion’s Group,” a picture depicting his coreligionists painted at the same time as this, housed at the Lisbon Museum of Contemporary Art. Painted in 1885, when Columbano returned from Paris, it was ordered for the showroom of the Caldas da Rainha China Factory. With the sale of the factory, the canvas passed into the hands of the antiques dealer Nolasco, of Lisbon, from whom it was acquired by Francisco Marques da Silva, who sent it to be restored and framed by the National Museum of Ancient Art.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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