MASP

This canvas was one of the first works by a women to enter the MASP collection. It is a self-portrait painted by Leonor de Almeida Portugal de Lorena e Lencastre, usually known as Alcipe. Daughter of the marquis D. João de Almeida Portugal (1663–1733), this noblewoman of Portuguese origin had a troubled life. Her family was persecuted by the Marquis of Pombal (1699– 1782), who ordered the execution of her maternal grandparents, her father’s imprisonment, as well as the incarceration of her sister, her mother and herself in the Saint Felix Convent in Chelas, where she lived from the age of eight until she was 27 years old. There, she had access to a multitude of works in the areas of philosophy, literature, poetry, music and painting. She dedicated herself chiefly to poetry; in addition to translating the classics, she was a versatile and prolific writer. Her talent was recognized by her contemporaries, who went to the convent to hear her poetry recitations. It was during this period that she adopted the name Alcipe. In addition to literature, she also dedicated herself to painting, a practice regarded as a sign of refinement and distinction. This painting was probably done while she lived in Vienna because of the work posts taken on by her husband, Karl von Oyenhausen-Gravenburg (1776– 1838), whom she married at the age of 29. In making her self-portrait, Alcipe chose to highlight her physical identity, forfeiting attributes connected to her intellectual and artistic endeavors: there are no paintbrushes, easels or books. The delicate visage, the hairstyle and the hair color, as well as the body stance and the outfit, are inspired by the “simplicity” advocated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), a favorite author of the artist’s. It is a formally fragile painting that nevertheless can also be understood as an important historical document regarding the value of paintings produced by noblewomen.

— Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni, livre‑docente em sociologia da arte, IEB-USP, 2019

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By Luciano Migliaccio
The picture Self-Portrait is an oval format, framed by gray wooden passe-partout having gilded profiles. It presents a half figure of the Marchioness of Alorna. The left hand is touching her face. She appears to be about forty years of age, rather older than in the picture on show in the Fronteira Palace. In 1793, the Marchioness became a widow but in the picture there is no reference to this. The pose is that of a pensive, dreaming poetess in Young’s poems or of a sitter portrayed by Angélica Kauffmann or Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, painters whom Alcippe certainly admired. The date of the picture, therefore, can be fixed as some years earlier, at the end of the decade of the 80’s. The figure’s hair is remarkable and elegant, embellished merely by a string of pearls, in the Louis XVI manner, before 1790. On the card from the Galeria Jorge in Rio de Janeiro, glued to the reverse of the panel, it states that the picture came to Brazil with the Marchioness of Alorna’s son.

— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998

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