Rosa Ramalho, an Emblem of Traditional Portuguese Pottery

She was born in the late 19th century in the municipality of Barcelos. At a very young age, she married a potter and had seven children. She learned to work with clay but gave it up for 50 years to focus on her family. When she was 68, her husband passed away and she returned to ceramics.

It was António Quadros who brought her and her craft out of obscurity, after seeing her one day making a clay doll with astonishing agility at the Fontainhas fair in Porto. “He thought it was very beautiful, it was a little bird. He asked if she made more. She replied that she had done it for many years but had stopped. Yet she always worked with clay because it was good for her skin.” The painter challenged her to make a batch, which he would buy. That was the beginning of a relationship that would last years, and also the beginning of Rosa Ramalho’s second life with clay, after having worked as a miller until her husband’s death.