Lourenço Correia de Matos, a partner at LMT Abreu Loureiro, Correia de Matos & Galvão Teles, recently produced two brief heraldic studies on two lush pieces of silver - a Mannerist salver with twenty-four segments and a French tureen of transition from the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth - soon to be auctioned in Lisbon and in New York at Cabral Moncada Leilões and Bonhams, respectively.

The Portuguese salver displays a decoration engraved with the arms of the Pereira de Brito, of Vila Viçosa, the family of São João de Brito – a quartered shield with the arms of the Pereira in the first and fourth quarters, of the Sousa, of Prado, in the second, and of the Brito in the third, with the Pereira crest, reduced to a cross placed between the shield and the coronet of nobility. These arms are identical to those on the tomb of Pedro de Sousa de Brito, in Vila Viçosa, dated 1622, where the solution found for the crest (its reduction and placement) is identical. In the same cemetery, in the family tomb of the Sousa Meneses, there is a tombstone of José António de Sousa e Meneses Pereira de Brito e Morais, noble knight of the Royal House, Commander of Santa Maria de Antime, of Carregosa and Palmeira, of the Order of Christ, with the same arms though the sequence of the quarters is inverted, again with a similar solution for the crest (both its reduction and placement).

The second piece analysed by Lourenço Correia de Matos was an elegant tureen, with the hallmark of Robert Linzeler, Paris, datable to the late nineteenth century, early twentieth, on which were applied the arms of Duarte de Sousa Coutinho (1719-1799), bailiff of the Order of Malta. Born in Loures, where he was baptized in the family palace on the 24th of September of 1719, Duarte de Sousa Coutinho died on the 15th of June of 1799. He was admitted as a knight of the Ordem de São João de Jerusalém, also referred to as the Order of Malta, on the 12th of September of 1739, having received the commendations of Abreiro, Alvações, Fregim, Freixiel, Poiares and Vilarinhos dos Freires. He was also bailiff of Acre and Leça - the latter location being a major territory of that Order in Portugal - and later receiver and attorney general for this same institution in our country. Duarte de Sousa Coutinho was the second son of Luís Vitório de Sousa Coutinho da Mata, 6th Postmaster General of the kingdom of Portugal, and his wife Dona Joana Catarina de Meneses. He was the paternal grandson of Duarte de Sousa Coutinho da Mata, 5th Postmaster General, and his wife Isabella Caffaro, and the maternal grandson of João Gonçalves da Câmara Coutinho and his wife Dona Luísa de Meneses (daughter of Dom Lourenço de Almada). As a second son, Duarte de Sousa Coutinho used the arms of his four grandparents - Sousa, de Arronches (simplified version); Coutinho; Caffaro; Câmara e Almada – also using, above all, the arms of his patrilineality - Mata - the heraldic set being based on a cross of the aforementioned Order of Malta and wrapped in a rosary with the same pendant cross, as appropriate for professed knights of this religion.

The Portuguese salver has a base price of 7000 euros and will be auctioned in Lisbon, on the upcoming 2nd of March, by Cabral Moncada Leilões, whereas the French tureen, set at a base bid of 7,100 euros, will be auctioned by Bonhams in New York on the 4th of March.

O palácio do Fiúza: memória de uma residência nobre em Alcântara, no termo de Lisboa is the title of the latest book by João Bernardo Galvão Teles, a partner at LMT Abreu Loureiro, Correia de Matos & Galvão Teles.

The result of an investigation carried out over several months for a client of the Art, Heritage and History Consultants, O palácio do Fiúza nrecounts the history of the building and of the estate that surrounded it, overlooking the now inexistent stream of Alcântara, from the beginnings of its foundation in the mid-seventeenth century by Judge Paulo de Carvalho, great-granduncle of the 1st Marquis of Pombal (whose birth may have taken place in this property), until today, including when it belonged to José Correia Fiúza, ombudsman of the Alfândega de Lisboa, whose name remained, and to the Barrunchos, an important family for whom this represented their majorat in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The palace of Fiúza also bears the memory of the deaths of Prince Dom Teodósio, King Dom João IV’s firstborn, and of Dom Pedro II, the monarch who more intensely lived in the neighbouring royal palace of Alcântara. Having fallen, at the end of the nineteenth early twentieth centuries, into the hands of Jacinto Gonçalves - the famous industrial of public transport in Lisbon, owner of the “Carros do Jacintho” – who placed the centre of his activity in the old estate, whereas the palace, which had already been transformed and allocated to urban lease, was also allegedly a place of Republican conspiracies.

According to José de Monterroso Teixeira, who wrote the foreword for the book, "the research work of Joao Bernardo Galvão Telles is exemplary from the perspective of deepening the accomplishments of the Lords of the House, or of the elites who, meanwhile and successively, lived in it, in different epochal contexts. Through its integration in family networks, its presentation is remarkably well structured with the use of essential primary sources. The kinship ties arise in a detailed and exhaustive genealogical mapping, which is enriched by his deep documentary knowledge. (...) In the tradition of the monographic deepening of houses with a significant architectural mark on the city and urban settlement, as a geographical reference, thematic bibliography now has a valuable contribution to its methodological renewal and historiographical update, as a testimonial and reflective process. "

O palácio do Fiúza, edited with the seal of LMT – Art, Heritage and History Consultants, is developed over 150 pages, which include a few paintings and genealogical schemes that help in the understanding of the narrative, as well as various colour images placed in an inset, reproducing portraits, plans and other iconographic elements. The book, with a print mostly off the market, can be purchased at the Livraria Ferin bookshop in Lisbon, or at the Guarda-Mor online bookshop.