| Summary: | We see what we learn to see. For many years, it was thought that the colour of the historical cities of Portugal could be divided into that of the Atlantic north, where the natural colours of materials predominate, and those of the Mediterranean south, favouring the white sensuality of mortar and whitewash; as for the azulejos, they were more often than not seen as a nineteenth-century fancy. The difficulties of presenting the architectural particularities of an old monument to the public were long resolved by referring to this over-simplistic model. Today, the truth appears to lie elsewhere. Vestiges of decorative elements such as sgraffito, trompe l’œil, stucco, and colour are being discovered, in strata, throughout the country. The Queluz Palace, inspired by Versailles like many other palaces in Europe in the eighteenth century, is a typical example of this inability to ‘see’ monuments. The recent discovery of remnants of a dark powder-blue (smalt blue) colour challenges the commonly accepted idea that the palace’s facades had always been pink or yellow ochre.
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