Simplício Rodrigues de Sá

Simplício Rodrigues de Sá (1785 - 9 March 1839) was a Portuguese painter and art teacher, born in present day Cape Verde, who spent most of his life and career in Brazil. He was a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Debret and took part in the formation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. He was one of the few Portuguese artists who worked actively in the orbit of the French Artistic Mission in Brazil. At the Imperial Academy, he taught drawing and temporarily held the chair of history painting.

Rodrigues de Sá worked closely with the Brazilian imperial family. He taught drawing and painting to Pedro II, Maria da Glória, the future queen of Portugal, and Empress Maria Leopoldina. His best-known work is the last portrait made of Pedro I while the emperor was still alive.

He is the Patron of the 33rd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Fine Arts.

Biography

Early Life

Simplício João Rodrigues de Sá was born in São Nicolau Tolentino, on the island of Santiago in Portuguese Cape Verde, in 1785; his exact date of birth is unknown and his baptismal name may have been Simplício João Rodrigues de Brito. His parents were João Rois de Brito and Margarida Rosa de Araújo; "Rois" is believed to be an abbreviation of Rodrigues, which may explain the later variation in one of his last names.

Simplício was sent to Lisbon in 1794 and entered the Real Casa Pia de Lisboa the following year. In 1809 he moves to Rio de Janeiro, where the first records of his work as a portrait painter dates back to 1812. In 1815 he briefly moves to Buenos Aires, where he advertises his services of commissioned portraits in oil. In 1817, he marries Norberta Máxima de Jesus. The couple had four children.

By August 1822, his home and studio in Rio de Janeiro were at Rua do Fogo, where he took portrait commissions and gave private lessons in drawing and painting.

In the second half of 1823, Jean-Baptiste Debret grew tired of waiting for the repeatedly delayed opening of the Academy of Fine Arts, so he rented a house in central Rio de Janeiro and formed a group of students, his first class, to teach painting techniques. Among his first pupils were Simplício Rodrigues de Sá, Francisco Pedro do Amaral, José de Cristo Moreira, Francisco de Sousa Lobo and José da Silva Arruda. The group later grew to include Manuel de Araújo Porto-Alegre, Augusto Müller, Guilherme Müller, José Reis de Carvalho, Afonso Augusto Falcoz and José Correia de Lima.

Debret returned to France in 1831, and Rodrigues de Sá temporarily took over the chair of history painting at the academy. He held the position until the appointment of Araújo Porto-Alegre later that year. In 1834, after the death of , Rodrigues de Sá became professor of drawing.

Imperial family

Simplício was appointed painter to the Imperial House of Brazil and became art teacher to Princess Maria da Glória, the future queen of Portugal, under a decree of 30 October 1826. He also taught drawing and painting to Empress Maria Leopoldina. ; the Marquis of Inhambupe, held by the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes; and Francisco Gomes da Silva, the Chalaça, held by the National Historical Museum of Brazil. He also painted religious subjects, including the Last Supper for the Church of the Third Order of Saint Francis of Penance in Rio de Janeiro, and genre subjects, including Irmão Pedinte in the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes.

In comparison with some Portuguese and Brazilian contemporaries, Rodrigues de Sá followed a more secular path in his work. Another is an engraved portrait of Pedro I, made by Edward Smith in 1827 after a painting Rodrigues de Sá had completed the previous year.

Around 1830, Rodrigues de Sá painted a small group of portraits of the daughters of Pedro I and Empress Leopoldina. The Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon holds portraits of Princess Januária, Princess Paula and Princess Francisca. Related portraits of the three princesses, signed and dated 1831, are held by the Oliveira Lima Library in Washington, D.C.

The National Historical Museum holds O Chalaça, a portrait of Francisco Gomes da Silva, oil on canvas, measuring .

His painting Irmão Pedinte ("Begging Friar") was shown in the Religious Painting Exhibition at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro in 1943. The painting belongs to the museum's collection. Reis Júnior described Irmão Pedinte as a small canvas with dense handling and firm, assured drawing.

Gallery