Arte Bordallo Ze Povinho sculpture small Toma

Zé-povinho is an excellent creation by Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro. Born in a satire newspaper, "A Lanterna Mágica", in 1875, it is the symbol of modest Portuguese people, who pay everything laughing at everything, naive, sensitive and suspicious, answering all those who oppressed him, with the well-known arm gesture (manguito) as a sign of resistance. Zé-povinho is afterwards produced in ceramic and is part of the famous moving figurines collection created by Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro. Earthenware. Hand crafted and painted in Portugal.

Portugal's most beloved cartoonist of the 19th century, Bordallo Pinheiro was famous for creating the character "Ze Povinho," a rustic laborer who was kind to his friends and contemptuous of those with money and power. His artistic style blends the honesty realism of late 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement with the dramatic, even grotesque, features of Goya's earlier paintings.

In 1884, he and his son founded an eponymous factory in Caldas da Rainha along the Portuguese coast to create whimsical and naturalistic faience pieces based on his art. Because of the special minerals in the local soil and the skills of the craftsmen in the area, Caldas da Rainha is well-known as the capital of Portuguese pottery. Today the factory takes Pinheiro's original style into the 21st century with satirical portraits of modern day celebrities, while continuing its old fashioned, made by hand tradition of Portuguese pottery making.