Portrait of Ramalho Ortigão

Half-body portrait of Ramalho Ortigão, is figured with a curly ends mustache and long sideburns, holding an open book in his right hand, using lunettes to read it, thus giving him a more caricatured posture, in a somehow ironic doctoral attitude.
Researcher, journalist, librarian, writer and art critic, Ramalho Ortigão was highlighted for his analysis of the late-nineteenth-century society, in a scathing criticism of the country and customs of the time. The work of the painter Columbano did not also escape to the assertive appreciation of Ramalho who, on several occasions published in journalistic articles less friendly opinions about his work.