The rooms where Isabel II, Carlos and Diana slept in Portugal can be visited. And this is what you have to do
It is a visit that only takes place in some data of the year and for a restricted number of people
For 80 years, that wing of the National Palace of Queluz remained off limits to ordinary eyes. The so-called Pavilhão D. Maria I, a small palace inside this other royal palace at the gates of Lisbon, served and served as the official residence of heads of state and foreign personalities in Portugal. Restored and turned into a museum, it can now be seen by everyone on special occasions, even in small groups. The next one is February 5th.
It is not by chance that the name of Isabel II appears and will appear several times during the visit with Conceição Coelho, conservator in this palace since 1986, and Hugo Xavier, also curator in this national monument. In 1956, the Pavilion underwent extensive modernization works to receive the Queen of England. The following year, the monarch and her husband recorded the moment they passed through the D. Maria pavilion by signing the book of honor that can be seen on the ground floor of the residence.
Before opening the way to the bedrooms and the really private area, Conceição Coelho makes a disclaimer: “When we thought of making this space a museum, we were going to replicate what it was like when Queen Elizabeth II was here, but when we started that work it was clear that everything that was here came either from the Palácio da Ajuda, or from the Museum of Ancient Art or from the Palace itself. from Queluz”. “What is today? The result of these 60 years of use”, he summarizes. As a result, they opted to recreate the spaces by combining elements from various moments – from the 1940 works campaign that transformed an old agricultural school (its use after the establishment of the Republic) in view of the Queen of England, passing through details from 1988, the last since these 25 compartments received works to house high-ranking figures of State.
From the presidential suite in the 1940s, which received Filipa de Bragança on a visit to Portugal on the occasion of the bicentennial, the residence now has two suites – one for Queen Elizabeth II and another for the Duke of Edinburgh in 1957. Do you know if it was a request from the couple.”
“We have a record of this: three days before and three days after the queen’s presence here, the Palace of Queluz closed to the public”, says Hugo Xavier. It was necessary to bring beds and furniture, even a piano from the palace of Queluz, and from other palaces and monuments. For example, the Germain tableware usually on display at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga was used here on a daily basis. The Duke of Edinburgh, solo, would occupy the same room again in 1973 and the couple would return in 1985. Two years later, Carlos and Diana also occupied the same spaces. They were among the last to see this house as it was prepared for Queen Elizabeth II.
After intense use after the 25th of April, the need for work was evident, as shown by the documentation that Conceição Coelho consulted in recent years while researching this space. Some get a private bathroom that they didn’t have, for example. A ‘modernity’ that had only reached the main floor in the 1950s.
In the bedroom where Elizabeth II slept, the four-poster bed and two bedside tables stand out, which came from the Museum of Ancient Art and were kept here “on long-term loan” and even the queen’s closet deserves a look to see the hangers. “They came from Palácio da Ajuda”, explains Conceição Coelho. They have a rod in the center that allows them to be hung in higher areas, as they were for longer dresses than the current ones. And the Arraiolos rugs are from “a large order from 1988”.
Conceição Coelho walks through the rooms, advances to the living room and finally to the dining room with the various plants of the house and the successive decorations in her head.
Over the years, and especially in the 1980s, personalized decoration based on the occupant became the norm. Elizabeth II could have tea in the living room, looking at the painting of Catherine of Bragança, who was queen of England.
It is still official residence
Although it remains an official residence, since 2004 no one has stayed overnight here. The then President of Poland was the last occupant, succeeding personalities such as King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, or his son, the then Prince Felipe, several presidents of Brazil and, further back, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and US President Eisenhower, or Marcello Caetano in the 1970s, who set up camp here while São Bento was under construction.
However, even now that the heads of state choose hotels and embassies in Lisbon to stay overnight and “visits are shorter”, as the conservators note, this residence continues to have official functions.
It was here that Bill Clinton, on a visit to Portugal, “set up his office”. It was here that Jorge Sampaio sat after leaving the Presidency of the Republic, while the office he came to occupy was remodeled (in D. Maria’s painting pavilion in the Palácio das Necessidades). It was here that Cavaco Silva set up his office before taking office as President of the Republic and the same happened with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. In fact, shortly before the last works – painting, restoration and treatment of the floors -, the current President of the Republic opened space in his agenda to see the works.
As she crosses the gardens of the Queluz Palace towards the D. Maria I Pavilion, conservationist Conceição Coelho, who has worked here since 1986, explains that the building bears witness to many important moments in the country’s history. From Portugal’s need to assert itself in Africa in the background of Elizabeth II’s first visit, in 1957, to Portugal’s accession to the EEC, which she brought back to the country.
Long before that, it served as the residence of D. Maria I (hence its name) when she was no longer in good health and although she remained close to her son, D. João VI, it was not part of the court ceremonies. And even earlier, at the beginning of everything, the building was designed to house the eldest son of D. Maria and D. Pedro III, José, who would die at the age of 27 from smallpox.
The long corridors on the ground floor open onto rooms with windows overlooking the garden of the Queluz Palace and reveal meeting rooms, support rooms for the entourages, or a mural by the painter Antero Basalisa, executed in 1956, anticipating the visit of the Queen of England and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.
AN next guided tour is scheduled for February 5th at 3 pm for a maximum of 10 participants. It has a duration of 60 minutes.