From Goa to Lisbon: The adventures of a Goan artist from the early 19th century, José Maria Gonsalves (1800-1845)

Abstract

With a work framed in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and a busy and adventurous life, circulating from Goa to Bombay and to Afghanistan, José Maria Gonsalves emerges as an emblematic figure, not only in the history of Goa, but also in the cultural and socio-political journey of English India. His interest in the various aspects of uses and customs, together with a taste for architecture, where a clear tendency towards the valorisation of details, makes his drawings and paintings documents indispensable for the Indo-Portuguese art. Also his lithographs, particularly those of Bombay, are a fundamental academic reference for the study of the architecture and urban development of this city in the first half of century XIX.