A technical comparison of three renaissance azulejo panels from the workshops of Lisbon

Abstract

This study of the early production of faience azulejos in Lisbon relies on three panels or groups of panels of known Portuguese origin: the incomplete and dispersed panels at Igreja da Graça signed by João de Góis and presumably datable to the 1560s; the panel of the demolished Capela de Nossa Senhora da Vida bearing a text that we believe identifies João de Góis as the workshop master and datable to ca. 1580, and the panels that line Capela de São Roque in Lisbon, dated “1584” and signed “Francisco de Matos”. In this article the information obtained from the microscopic observations and instrumental analyses of samples collected from tiles of the several panels is compared aiming to determine their common characteristics and most relevant differences.