Monumento ao Infante Dom Henrique, Porto

Here in Praça Portugal, Brasília, the Monumento ao Infante Dom Henrique is a bronze memorial to Infante Henrique, Duke of Viseu. Portuguese artist Salvador Carvão d’Eça Barata Feyo made the work, and it rises from a concrete pedestal. Henrique is honored here as the father of Portuguese navigation.

The monument stands beside the embassies of Portugal and the United States. Its site belongs to the architectural setting created for Portugal’s embassy, linking the sculpture directly to this diplomatic corner of the city. The memorial was unveiled in November nineteen sixty, with Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek attending.

Portugal’s embassy building opened later, in nineteen seventy-eight, while Praça Portugal was reinaugurated in nineteen seventy-two. By twenty twenty, both the square and the monument had suffered years of deterioration. The Federal District government then began restoration work, including work on this memorial. What you see is therefore both a tribute to Portugal’s maritime past and a public artwork with a distinct place in Brasília’s diplomatic landscape.