Amazonia Centerpiece

This collection is the result of a collaboration between Bordallo Pinheiro and the Brazilian NGO Ecoarts Amazônia in the preservation of an environmental, cultural, social and scientific heritage crucial to mankind's future. Each piece was inspired from the very rich local flora and was only possible thanks to intense knowledge sharing with those who live their daily lives in this vibrant mosaic of ecosystems, traditions, colours, sounds and smells that is the Amazon rainforest. Part of the collection's proceeds will go the reforestation of the Amazon area of Mato Grosso, by planting indigenous fruit trees in cities, rural areas and indigenous villages of the region where Ecoarts Amazônia operates. Portugal's most beloved cartoonist of the 19th century, Bordallo Pinheiro was famous for creating the character "Ze Povinho," a rustic laborer who was kind to his friends and contemptuous of those with money and power. His artistic style blends the honesty realism of late 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement with the dramatic, even grotesque, features of Goya's earlier paintings. In 1884, he and his son founded an eponymous factory in Caldas da Rainha along the Portuguese coast to create whimsical and naturalistic faience pieces based on his art. Because of the special minerals in the local soil and the skills of the craftsmen in the area, Caldas da Rainha is well-known as the capital of Portuguese pottery. Today the factory takes Pinheiro's original style into the 21st century with satirical portraits of modern day celebrities, while continuing its old fashioned, made by hand tradition of Portuguese pottery making.