Museums and Palaces

In the middle of a garden on an estate that he owned in Golegã, and very close to his actual residence, Carlos Relvas commissioned a beautiful two-storey building, which is quite unique in its kind and in which iron and wood are combined in accordance with the romantic taste of that time. This building was to be his studio and it was here that he devoted much of his time to his passion for photography.

In the numerous rooms that were designed to correspond to the various different phases of photography, ranging from the preparations of the chemicals to the finishing touches and the specially assembled scenarios that were typical of that period, Relvas kept some of the most advanced equipment and apparatus of his time, which he had purchased abroad. Here he also expounded upon the techniques needed for developing photographs, collected Portuguese and international articles and studies on the subject of photography, studied and disseminated the phototype process, in which he was particularly skilled, putting together a collection of materials that is of tremendous importance for all amateur and professional people interested in the art of photography.

Placing his knowledge of the new technique at the service of art, Carlos Relvas left us with photographic evidence of many aspects of Portuguese life in the 19th century.

Writers, politicians, humble folk, monuments, churches, villages - in fact a complete picture of a whole society and way of life in 19th-century Portugal - have been recorded through the eye of his lens and left to us for our appreciation. Sometimes Carlos Relvas displays a keen understanding of reality, while on other occasions he removes from the photograph the air of naked truth provided by the events and developments of that period.