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Unidentified photographer
Cintra [Sintra]
1850-1854
Salted paper print
33.3 x 41.6 cm (image)
The Royal Collection
RCIN 2700726
LL/91146
Photograph showing the Pena National Palace at Sintra, Portugal, perched on the top of steep rocky cliffs, with forest around the base of the hill. The site, originally occupied by a small Medieval chapel, grew into a monastery populated by monks of the order of St Jerome until the mid-18th century when severe lighting and then an earthquake reduced the building to ruins. King Ferdinand II of Portugal (1816-85), consort of Queen Maria II of Portugal (1819-53) and first cousin of Queen Victoria as well as of Prince Albert, acquired the abandoned monastery and transformed it, between 1842 and 1854, into a palace with the help of Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege (1777-1855), a German mining engineer, army officer and amateur architect. The palace, considered one of the finest examples of Romantic architecture, was made, together with its park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
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