Portuguese azulejos have been around for hundreds of years, but they have never really stayed the same. The early tiles used in Portugal look completely different from the blue-and-white panels most people know today, and those are different again from the tiled façades you see all over Lisbon and Porto.
That is what makes the history so interesting. Portugal kept the basic idea of decorating with ceramic tile, then spent more than five centuries changing what those tiles looked like, where they were used and what they were meant to do.
The history of Portuguese azulejo tiles really takes off in the early 1500s. Portugal first used large amounts of Hispano-Moresque tilework imported from Spain. Local production then developed in Lisbon during the second half of the 16th century, before azulejos became a huge part of Portuguese art and architecture during the 17th and 18th centuries.
A quick overview of Portuguese azulejo history
Before we get properly into it, it helps to take a quick look at how the whole thing developed.
Portugal had glazed ceramic floors before the azulejo wall tradition really started. Imported tiles from other parts of Iberia were also being used by the late 1400s.
Patterned wall tiles made in Seville and Toledo become a big feature in Portuguese royal and religious buildings.
Workshops in Lisbon begin making faience tiles, giving painters much more freedom to create figures, scenes and detailed decoration.
Churches and other buildings are covered with increasingly complicated repeating patterns, sometimes from floor to ceiling.
Dutch ceramics, Chinese porcelain and Portuguese painting all feed into the huge blue-and-white scenes now closely connected with Portugal.
After the earthquake, cheaper repeating tiles become a practical part of new interiors across the rebuilt city.
Industrial and semi-industrial production makes decorative tiles faster and cheaper to produce, so tiled façades spread across Portuguese towns and cities.
Maria Keil and other artists use azulejos across the Lisbon Metro, showing how well the format can work in completely modern architecture.
If you are completely new to the subject and want to know exactly what an azulejo is before getting into the history, our guide to what azulejos actually are is probably the better place to start.
The story starts before Portugal was making azulejos
Portugal did not invent glazed decorative tile.
The country was already part of a much bigger ceramic world. Islamic art had been using glazed tiles and geometric decoration for centuries, and those ideas became a big part of art and architecture across the Iberian Peninsula during Muslim rule.
The National Azulejo Museum records glazed mosaic floors in Portugal from as early as the 13th century, with imported floor tiles also appearing during the 15th century.
Things really start changing at the beginning of the 16th century, when patterned azulejos begin appearing much more heavily on walls.
These early wall tiles were mainly Hispano-Moresque. They were made in Spanish centres such as Seville and Toledo, using techniques that allowed different colours and geometric shapes to sit together in detailed repeating designs.
Portuguese azulejos eventually became much more figurative and painterly, but the love of repetition, pattern and covering huge surfaces never really disappeared. You can still see that idea hundreds of years later on Portuguese building façades.
Manuel I and the tiles at Sintra
King Manuel I is one of the first big names in Portuguese azulejo history.
During his reign, huge numbers of Hispano-Moresque tiles were ordered for the National Palace of Sintra. Parques de Sintra records that thousands of azulejos were ordered between 1507 and 1510 while Manuel was working on the palace.
Some were even made with the armillary sphere, Manuel I's personal emblem, built directly into the pattern.
The tiles were already becoming much more than something used to fill a wall. They worked with the room, the architecture and even the identity of the person who had commissioned them.
You keep seeing that idea throughout Portuguese azulejo history. The best examples normally make sense with the building and space around them.
You can read more about the palace itself through Parques de Sintra .
Portugal starts making its own azulejos
Importing tiles was one thing. Once Portugal started making its own, artists suddenly had a lot more freedom.
Portuguese azulejo production developed in Lisbon during the second half of the 16th century. The National Azulejo Museum connects this growth with Flemish craftspeople who settled in the city and brought knowledge of faience production with them.
The new technique gave painters a white glazed surface they could paint onto much more freely.
The tile no longer had to stay inside the same sort of geometric structure you see in the earlier Hispano-Moresque work. Artists could paint people, architecture, religious scenes and decoration in a way that was much more like normal painting.
Portuguese buildings use large amounts of tile made in Spanish centres such as Seville and Toledo.
Portuguese workshops develop their own faience production and painters get much more freedom over the finished image.
Some of the surviving work from this period is pretty incredible.
The Retable of Nossa Senhora da Vida, normally dated to around 1580, uses painted tiles to create a huge Renaissance-style religious scene.
Another major example is the tilework in the Chapel of São Roque in Lisbon, signed and dated 1584 by Francisco de Matos.
By the end of the century, Portugal was already doing something very different with the tile tradition it had originally imported.
The 1600s: Portugal goes big on pattern
The 17th century is where Portuguese azulejos really start getting their own look.
The National Azulejo Museum describes the century as a major period in the development of azulejo as an art connected with Portuguese identity.
And one of the biggest changes was simply how much tile people were using.
Whole walls could be covered in repeating patterns. Churches were especially big customers because tiles were a really effective way of filling huge spaces with colour and decoration.
These layouts were sometimes called tapetes, or carpets, because the finished wall had the same sort of repeated visual rhythm as a massive textile.
And some of the patterns got seriously complicated.
Some used modules of 2 × 2 tiles. Others used 4 × 4 or 6 × 6. The famous Marvila pattern needed a 12 × 12 module, which means 144 individual tiles were needed before the full design even started repeating.
Most of these were not blue and white either. A lot of 17th-century patterns used combinations of blue, yellow and green.
So Portugal already had a really strong and recognisable tile tradition before the famous blue-and-white period even started.
Then blue and white starts taking over
Towards the end of the 17th century, Portuguese azulejos start moving towards the blue-and-white look that is now famous all over the world.
There is actually a lot going on behind the colour change.
Chinese blue-and-white porcelain had become hugely popular in Europe. Dutch tile painters were also making incredibly detailed blue-and-white panels, including work produced for Portuguese customers.
Portugal took those influences and started doing something much bigger with them.
Instead of treating tiles as lots of small separate images, Portuguese painters kept covering huge architectural surfaces. Blue-and-white tile painting became a way of filling whole walls with landscapes, religious stories, battles, hunting scenes and mythology.
Chinese porcelain, Dutch ceramics, cobalt pigment and changes in Portuguese taste all come into the story. We cover all of that properly in why Portuguese tiles became blue and white.
The 1700s: azulejos become huge painted scenes
By the start of the 18th century, Portuguese tile painting had become seriously impressive.
The period from around 1690 to 1725 is normally called the Cycle of the Masters. Tile painters were now being treated much more like artists, and some regularly signed their work.
Wealthy customers wanted bigger and more detailed panels, so painters created huge scenes designed specifically for the rooms and buildings they were going into.
Churches commissioned religious stories. Palaces used hunting, military and mythological scenes. Staircases, halls and gardens could all become part of one huge ceramic image.
You also start getting some really interesting ideas that are much more specific to the way Portugal was using azulejos.
One example is the figura de convite, or invitation figure. These were life-sized painted characters placed near entrances, staircases and other access points, almost like ceramic people welcoming you into the building or showing you where to go.
I really like this because it shows how far people were pushing the idea. The tiles could actually become part of the way somebody moved through a building.
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake changes things again
On 1 November 1755, Lisbon was hit by the earthquake that destroyed a huge part of the city.
Rebuilding on that scale needed practical materials that could be produced without costing a fortune, and azulejos became part of that.
The National Azulejo Museum explains that repeating pattern tiles came back strongly inside the new buildings because they were effective and relatively cheap.
These designs are now known as Pombaline azulejos, named after the Marquis of Pombal, who oversaw the reconstruction of Lisbon under King José I.
The people buying tiles were changing too.
Azulejos were no longer mainly tied to the Church and nobility. A growing middle class was buying them as well, which helped move tilework further into normal Portuguese life.
The 1800s: azulejos move out onto the street
This is the period that creates a lot of the Portugal people recognise today.
During the second half of the 19th century, cheaper pattern tiles started covering thousands of building façades across Portuguese towns and cities.
Factories in Lisbon, Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia could make tiles much faster using semi-industrial and industrial techniques. Places such as Viúva Lamego, Sacavém, Massarelos and Devezas became part of a much bigger ceramic industry.
The Instituto Camões describes this cheaper pattern tile as covering thousands of façades during the second half of the century.
The north and south even developed slightly different looks. Porto and the north became known for more raised surfaces that created stronger light and shadow, while Lisbon and the south used more flat repeating patterns.
Azulejos were now part of everyday city life.
A normal apartment building could be completely covered in pattern. That changed the look of Portuguese streets in a way that is still incredibly obvious today.
The tiles also travelled to Brazil
Portuguese azulejos had already reached Brazil during the colonial period, and the connection continued into the 19th century. The National Azulejo Museum records that major Portuguese factories produced façade tiles that were also sent to Brazil. You can still see that Portuguese tile history across Brazilian architecture today.
The 1900s: azulejos become modern again
By the 20th century, azulejos already had hundreds of years of history behind them.
It would have been pretty easy for people to just keep copying old designs.
Instead, modern artists kept doing new things with them.
One of the best examples is Maria Keil and the Lisbon Metro.
When Lisbon's first Metro stations opened in 1959, azulejos were brought straight into a completely modern public transport system. Keil designed tiled surfaces for almost all of the early stations and continued working across the network into the 1970s.
The Lisbon Metro describes azulejo as a Portuguese art form that was deliberately brought into the first stations through Keil's designs.
Her work is mostly geometric and modern. It does not try to look like an 18th-century church or copy an old palace wall.
I think that is the really interesting part.
Portuguese azulejo history never ends up stuck with one traditional look. Artists keep taking the same basic ceramic format and making it work for whatever period they are living in.
Portuguese azulejos today
The tradition is still going.
Contemporary artists and architects continue to use azulejos in homes, public art, transport, hotels, cultural buildings and new architectural projects.
Historic factories such as Viúva Lamego still work with artists and still use hand-painted processes alongside newer production methods.
At the same time, Portugal has the completely different job of protecting hundreds of years of old tilework already sitting on buildings around the country.
That mix is probably what I like most about the history.
You can stand inside a royal palace looking at 16th-century imported tiles, walk through a church covered in 17th-century patterns, pass an 1800s tiled apartment building on the way home and then get on a Metro surrounded by 20th-century ceramic art.
It is all azulejo, but it definitely is not all the same thing.
Why we like this history
This is exactly the kind of history we like at CITTRA Collective.
You notice the design first because the colours, patterns and massive painted scenes look great.
Then you start learning a bit more and suddenly the same tile connects to Islamic art, royal Portugal, Lisbon workshops, churches, the 1755 earthquake, factories, Brazil, city façades and modern public art.
That is the bit we find really interesting.
There is already loads of visual inspiration there, but there is also a genuine story behind why Portuguese azulejos look the way they do and why they became such a recognisable part of Portugal.
Portugal on the wall
Portuguese azulejo history, turned into contemporary prints
Our Portuguese Azulejo collection takes ideas from the colour, pattern and structure of Portuguese tilework and mixes them with subjects that genuinely connect back to Portugal.
We want the finished print to look great on the wall, but there should also be something real behind the design.
Explore the Azulejo collection See a featured Azulejo printQuestions about the history of Portuguese azulejos
When did azulejos first appear in Portugal?
Portugal used glazed ceramic floors before the main azulejo tradition developed, but patterned azulejos became widely used on walls at the start of the 16th century. Many of these early tiles were imported from Spanish centres such as Seville and Toledo.
When did Portugal start making its own azulejos?
Portuguese azulejo production developed in Lisbon during the second half of the 16th century. Flemish craftspeople helped bring knowledge of faience production to the city, which gave Portuguese workshops much more freedom to create painted designs.
What happened to Portuguese tiles during the 1600s?
The 17th century saw huge repeating patterns spread across Portuguese buildings, especially churches. Figurative and decorative tilework also became much more common, and Portuguese azulejos started developing a much more recognisable style of their own.
When did Portuguese azulejos become blue and white?
Blue-and-white tilework became especially popular from the late 17th century into the 18th century. Chinese porcelain and Dutch ceramics both influenced the look, while Portuguese painters adapted it to the huge architectural panels already being used in Portugal.
What did the 1755 Lisbon earthquake have to do with azulejos?
Lisbon had to be rebuilt on a huge scale after the earthquake. Repeating pattern tiles became a practical and relatively affordable option for new interiors. These post-earthquake designs are now normally known as Pombaline azulejos.
Why do so many Portuguese buildings have tiled façades?
Tiled façades became especially common during the second half of the 19th century. Industrial and semi-industrial production made repeating pattern tiles cheaper and faster to make, so they spread across thousands of buildings in cities including Lisbon and Porto.
Are azulejos still made in Portugal today?
Yes. Azulejos are still produced and used in modern Portuguese art and architecture. Historic manufacturers such as Viúva Lamego still work with artists, while modern ceramic installations can be seen throughout Portuguese public spaces and transport systems.
Where can I learn more about Portuguese tile history?
The National Azulejo Museum in Lisbon is probably the best place to start. Its collection covers Portuguese azulejo production from historic examples right through to modern ceramic art.
Sources & further reading
The main dates and historical details in this article were checked against Portuguese museums, heritage organisations and cultural institutions.
- National Azulejo Museum
- National Azulejo Museum — The Azulejo in Portugal
- Parques de Sintra — National Palace of Sintra
- Parques de Sintra — Manueline Palace and the 1507–1510 Azulejo Orders
- Instituto Camões — 19th-Century Azulejo Façades
- Metropolitano de Lisboa — Art in the Stations
- Viúva Lamego — Portuguese Azulejo Production
Image credits
- Vitor Oliveira — CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
- Pedro Ribeiro Simões — CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
- Manuelvbotelho — CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
- Alvesgaspar — CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons