" Porcelain Fabric - Vista Alegre " Aveiro Things to Do Tip by NunoF

In 1817, Jos? Ferreira Pinto Basto V bought a small farm in Vista Alegre in the council of Ilhavo. He built a very pretty 17th century chapel on the edges of the fields along the branches of the Aveiro River. This collection belonged to the Bishop of Miranda, that in the 17th century was director of the University of Coimbra, where it was ordered to build a chapel in which the bishop is buried. The location of the Vista Alegre factory still preserves today an uncommon beauty, the riverside as much as the chapel, museum, and factory. Jos? Ferreira Pinto Basto, on making this purchase, had the intention to establish the porcelain factory there as he dreamed. The location was as good as any in the area, years before, a powder was discovered to make coin moulds for the statue of D. Jos? by Bartolomeu da Costa, and it would be the first porcelain made in Portugal.
D. Jo?o VI, king of Portugal, recognising his exceptional entrepreneurial talents, granted him a coat of arms.
The factory inherited the name Vista Alegre and became world famous for the excellent quality of its porcelain works. The licence authorised the constuction of the factory on 1 June 1824 and was referred to as the big factory.
The licence was requested invoking past experiences in Lisbon where the petitioner lived, with a view to test raw materials capable of producing china dishes.
Meanwhile in Vista Alegre glass dishware was already being produced and a basic sort of crockery known as refractory stone ceramic or "pyrite" (stone dust).
Only after 4 years of activity, now in the kingdom of D. Miguel, the firm was given the title "Royal" that was later added as a prefix to its name.