Ad Monumentum Divi Josepho I

This print by Eleutério Manuel de Barros (1754–1812) after a design by Joaquim Carneiro da Silva (1727–1818) is an allegory celebrating the inauguration of the equestrian statue of King José I. The statue was erected in the new main square in Lisbon in an area that had been devastated by the earthquake of 1755. The allegory shows a winged angel of immortality with a serpent eating its tail, symbol of eternal cyclical renewal, crowning a nude Hercules with his usual attributes of lion, lionskin and club. Trampling on snakes, the heroic pagan hero raises up a female personification of Lisbon emerging from ruins and holding a model of the equestrian statue.

Ad Monumentum Divi Josepho I…, engraving, 1775, artist: Eleutério Manuel de Barros after Joaquim da Corneiro; source: National Library of Portugal, Lisbon, https://purl.pt/4979, public domain.