Aleijadinho

Antônio Francisco Lisboa was the “natural son” of a Portuguese master builder, Manuel Francisco Lisboa, and an enslaved woman, Isabel. Witnesses of the time described him as mixed-race, dark-skinned, with a strong voice and short stature. At about forty years old, the artist developed a degenerative disease in the joints that left him deformed and gave him his nickname – Aleijadinho means “little crippled one” in Portuguese. Despite his physical limitations, Aleijadinho built the church of São Francisco de Assis and Nossa Senhora das Mercês e Perdões, both in Ouro Preto. For more than twenty years, he was commissioned by several colonial villages in Minas Gerais. Between 1800 and 1805, he made sets of sculptures such as the Stations of the Cross and the Twelve Prophets for the church of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, in Congonhas do Campo. Despite the success he achieved while still alive, the artist died poor, sick and alone.