The Room of the Swans: a swan amongst the 30 wearing golden crowns around their necks painted in the 1400s on the ceiling of the Sala dos Cisnes in the Palácio Nacional, the royal summer palace at Sintra, near Lisbon, Portugal. The collared swan, a medieval English heraldic symbol, references the marriage in 1387 of Philippa of Lancaster to Portuguese monarch, King John. In 1380, the symbol of “the swan gorged and chained with a crown” was adopted by the English royal House of Lancaster.
Sintra, Lisbon region, Portugal: thirty swans wearing golden crowns, painted in the 1400s within gilded octagonal frames, decorate the wooden ceiling of the Sala dos Cisnes or Room of the Swans, a former Great Hall of the Palácio Nacional de Sintra, the royal summer palace of King John I of Portugal and his Queen consort, Philippa of Lancaster. The crowned swan emblem was an heraldic device originally used in medieval England by the noble family of de Bohun, Earls of Hereford and of Essex. After the de Bohun male line died out in 1373 and Mary de Bohun married the Lancastrian Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV, in 1380, the de Bohun symbol, “the swan gorged and chained with a crown”, was adopted by the royal House of Lancaster. In 1387, Philippa of Lancaster (1360-1415), Henry IV’s elder sister, married King João I (John I) of Portugal (1357-1433), who began a major rebuilding and enlargement of the royal retreat at Sintra in about 1415. The date when the swans were painted on the ceiling is unknown, but Sintra was among Philippa’s possessions as Queen consort and the administration of the palace was under her direct control. Some historians believe that the ceiling is painted with 30 swans because that was the age of Philippa’s daughter, the Infanta Isabella, when she received an offer of marriage in 1428 from twice-widowed Philip the Good (1396-1467), the third Duke of Burgundy. Isabella of Portugal (1397-1471) duly became Duchess of Burgundy when she married Philip by proxy in July 1429. The swans are painted on the ceiling of the Sala dos Cisnes standing in natural watery settings with golden crowns inverted on their necks, but without the golden chains attached to the crowns usually depicted in Lancastrian heraldry.
Size: 3133px × 4692px
Location: Palácio Nacional de Sintra, Sintra, Lisbon region, Portugal.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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