Victor Meirelles de Lima was a Brazilian painter and teacher who is best known for his works relating to his nation's culture and history. From humble origins, his talent was soon recognized, being admitted as a student at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. He specialized in the genre of history painting, and upon winning the Academy's Foreign Travel Award, he spent several years training in Europe. There he painted his best-known work, Primeira Missa no Brasil. Returning to Brazil, he became one of emperor Pedro II's favorite painters, joining the monarch's patronage program and aligning himself with his proposal to renew the image of Brazil through the creation of visual symbols of its history.
Meirelles, 1860s
The house where Meirelles was born, today the Victor Meirelles Museum
View of Desterro, 1847. Victor Meirelles Museum
The Flagellation of Christ, 1856. A canvas made during his period as a fellow at the Academy in Europe, which earned him an extension of his scholarship. National Museum of Fine Arts
Imperial Academy of Fine Arts (Brazil)
The Imperial Academy of Fine Arts was an institution of higher learning in the arts in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, established by King João VI. Despite facing many initial difficulties, the Academy was established and took its place at the forefront of Brazilian arts education in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Academy became the center of the diffusion of new aesthetic trends and the teaching of modern artistic techniques. It eventually became one of the principal arts institutions under the patronage of Emperor Dom Pedro II. With the Proclamation of the Republic, it became known as the National School of Fine Arts. It became extinct as an independent institution in 1931, when it was absorbed by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and became known as the UFRJ School of Fine Arts, which still operates today.
Entrance of the Academy building (Photographed by Marc Ferrez, in 1891). Today, it is the entrance to the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden.
Dom João VI, painted by Debret. Museu Nacional de Belas Artes.
Architectural plans for the Academy, published by Debret
The final portrait commissioned by Dom Pedro I; painted by Simplício de Sá.