After 226 years of construction, the west wing of Palácio da Ajuda, the last residence of the kings of Portugal, was opened to the public with the brand new Museum of the Royal Treasury. The facility houses a collection of more than a thousand pieces, which include rare and valuable jewels from the Portuguese crown, as well as coins, religious jewelery items, artistic silverware — and a large amount of gold and diamonds from Brazil.
This is the name of one of the 11 thematic areas of the exhibition. A panel highlights the abundance of Minas Gerais deposits and their “diamonds in enormous and unprecedented quantity”, which provided a paradigm shift in Portuguese jewelry, “which is now defined not by precious metals, but by gemstones”. Not by chance, of the 22,000 stones on display, 18,000 are diamonds.
The text of the Brazilian section mentions that the gold rush brought explorers and adventurers to the region, but does not allude to the labor of Africans and indigenous people enslaved in the extraction mines.
Director of the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, historian José Alberto Ribeiro says that references to slavery were only included in the exhibition catalogue, which is not yet available. The compilation, whose printing would have been delayed due to the Ukrainian War, is expected to be ready in July.
“This is mentioned in the catalog, right at the opening, when it comes to mining. The exhibition is purely to show the jewels of the royal treasure and tell its story”, says Ribeiro.
In addition to the finished jewelry, the show displays a series of rough stones and gold nuggets. The biggest highlight is also coming from Brazil: the second largest gold nugget in the world, with about 22 kg.
The royal jewels, however, are the most disputed point of the museum, which makes a great collection of time and styles, showing how the adornments of the monarchy evolved over the years.
It is in this area that some of the main pieces of the collection are located, such as the large emerald bow that belonged to Maria Bárbara de Bragança, who was the daughter of King Dom João 5th and was queen of Spain. The piece was dismantled and its pieces were used to compose other ornaments, but it was restored to its original form.
“The jewel enters the Royal House after the death of the queen, who had no children, and left her inheritance to the Portuguese family”, explains Ribeiro. “They are considered one of the clearest Colombian emeralds.”
Another restored piece is a gold tiara, by Dona Estefânia, received as a wedding gift from Dom João 5º. The jewel was considered missing for several years and was only discovered recently, when experts from the collection identified that the piece was, in fact, dismantled.
“It was a piece of jewelry that must have been very uncomfortable, because when Dona Estefânia wore it to her wedding, there are reports that her forehead bled”, says the palace director.
Originally with 4,000 diamonds, the piece is displayed fully “unstudded”, as are a few other items. The idea is also to show how royalty did a kind of recycling of precious stones, which had their adornments changed constantly. There is also a selection of completely black jewelry, ideal for moments of “deep mourning”.
Valuable, royal jewels have not escaped sales, thefts and auctions over the years. The collection does, however, display several items that the Portuguese State has managed to repurchase over the years. Not all acquisition attempts, however, were successful. Auctioned at Christie’s in May 2021, the diamond and sapphire tiara of Queen Maria 2nd – who was the daughter of Dom Pedro 1º and born in Rio de Janeiro – ended up being bought by a Middle Eastern magnate.
Portugal even made bids for the piece, but the budget made available for the purchase was not enough against the €1.3 million (about R$ 6.7 million) offered by the collector. The owner, however, has agreed to loan the piece for the opening of the museum, where it will remain for a year.
The exhibition also has a nucleus dedicated to the ritual objects of the monarchy, which represented the power of the kings of Portugal. The ultimate symbol of royal power, the last crown was ordered in Brazil, in 1817, for the acclamation ceremony of Dom João 6º.
All in gold, the piece has a particularity: it was not placed on the heads of sovereigns when they began to reign. This happened because of a tradition started by the first king of the Bragança dynasty. After regaining Portugal’s independence from Spain in 1640, Dom João 4th symbolically handed over his crown to an image of Nossa Senhora da Conceição and affirmed that she would be the “true queen of Portugal”.
From that moment until the establishment of the Republic, in 1910, Portuguese monarchs did not have a coronation ceremony, but an acclamation, in which the new sovereign received the crown, but did not place it on his head.
The show still impresses with the reproduction of a huge real dining table. Ordered from the French goldsmith François-Thomas Germain after the great earthquake of 1755 destroyed the previous set, the imposing tableware, with many artistic details, is a world reference in quality and rarity.
The last part of the show is called “Viagens do Tesouro Real” and is dedicated to the mobility of its content, including in not-so-glorious moments in Portuguese history, such as the departure of the royal family and the court to Brazil in 1807.
Most of the treasure returned to Portugal in 1821, with the return of Dom João 6º. The goods that were at the service of the regency in Brazil, however, had a much more dispersed destination. Some of the items returned to Lisbon, while others are still unknown.
According to the museum director, the collection will not be loaned to other institutions. There is a concern about the safety of the parts after a theft that took place in December 2002 in the Netherlands.
This concern permeates the entire museum, which is housed in one of the largest vaults in the world. They are 40 meters long, 10 meters wide and another 10 meters high. Access is via 5-ton armored doors. All windows have temperature control and bulletproof glass.
To get there, you still have to go through a metal detector. Bags, backpacks and coats go through an x-ray machine similar to those found in airports. The museum is open every day, with tickets for €10 euros (about R$51).
