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Varia

No. 16 (2025): Collecting Art

"Uma espineta pintada de verde": Musical instruments, and the contribution of post mortem inventories to the study of lexicon and iconography in Portugal (18th and 19th centuries)

DOI
https://doi.org/10.37935/iha.oan2025.011
Submitted
12 June 2025
Published
30-12-2025

Abstract

Chapter IV of Volume I of my doctoral thesis in Art History (2024) entitled “Images of Music in Baroque Painting in Portugal (1600-1750)” is a glossary of musical terms in use in 17th and 18th century Portugal, based on primary archival sources (Duarte, 2024a: 573-711). And “[u]ma espineta pintada de verde com seis pés do mesmo, avaliada em 19$200 réis”1 [a] spinet painted green with six feet of the same color, valued at 19$200 réis” is part of that collection organized by types of musical instruments, using those sources — especially post-mortem inventories — and from which the present statement originates. With the exception of this chapter, all others continue the survey, study, and dissemination of musical iconography and iconology in Portugal, based on paintings and drawings collected in situ. This resulted in a customized and computerized database with more than six thousand musical motifs, focusing on paintings from Álvaro Pirez d’Évora to Domingos Sequeira, in the logical and natural continuation of the research carried out in recent years. Interpreting the silences of the research, this chapter seeks to dissect and disseminate unpublished sources for the study of musical lexicon, comparing them with contemporary iconography and cultural contexts.

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