(d Lisbon, 1779). Portuguese potter and painter. He became director and painting master of the REAL FÁBRICA DO RATO in Lisbon after the expulsion in 1771 of the first director TOMÁS BRUNETTO. With his predecessor, Almeida is associated with the factory’s most successful and distinctive period. Initially he collaborated with the potter and painter Severino José da Silva (d 1797) who was also vice-director and head of the potters’ workshop. Almeida planned to reform the factory, but his ideas were thwarted in 1772 when the board of directors instructed him to dismiss many employees including da Silva and the painters João and Antonio Berardi. However, in 1777 Almeida was granted a ten-year monopoly, the conditions being that he was obliged to have six well-trained artisans at hand, and he was to be given all the materials he needed, provided that he reimbursed the board of directors within the ten-year period. There was a marked change in style in the wares produced at the factory under Almeida’s direction. In particular, the large pieces enamelled with polychrome decoration were abandoned in favour of smaller and more delicately executed items of blue-and-white tableware that were influenced by wares from the Rouen faience factories (see ROUEN, §III). Almeida’s brother José Baptista de Almeida became submaster of the potters’ workshop in 1783.

• Almeida, Sebastião Inácio de
  • Lisbon, §2: Centre of ceramics production
  • Portugal, §VII, 1: Faience
  • Real Fábrica do Rato
  • Tile, §II, 3(ii): Portugal, after 1600