Points of Interest
The Gardens and National Palace of Queluz
Antechamber to Queen Carlota Joaquina’s Apartments
An antechamber is a waiting or passage room situated before the chamber, the term then used for a bedroom. In court life in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it served a practical but also a ceremonial purpose, providing a space where visitors were received or asked to wait standing. The set of chairs arranged symmetrically along the walls was therefore more decorative than functional.
Following the establishment of the Republic in 1910, this room came to be known as the Hunting Room, owing to the canvas paintings covering its walls and ceiling. Created in the early nineteenth century, these belong to two distinct decorative schemes: the ceiling features the goddess Diana surrounded by hunting scenes, while the walls depict leafy trees that visually extend the room into the surrounding landscape.
About Queen Carlota Joaquina’s Apartments
Born in Spain, Carlota Joaquina (1775–1830) came to live at the National Palace of Queluz at the age of ten, following her marriage to Infante João, the future King João VI (1767–1826). A prominent and controversial figure in Portuguese and Brazilian history, she played an active political role at a time when women’s participation in public life was limited, asserting her influence in court affairs.
In 1807, she accompanied the royal family to Brazil following the French invasions, returning to Portugal in 1821. Later, she supported her son, Miguel, in defending absolutism against the liberal movement.
In the final years of her life, the Queen chose a ground-floor area of the National Palace of Queluz, close to the gardens, for her apartments. She died there in 1830. The rooms, which retain furniture and objects that belonged to her, offer an insight into her daily life and personal taste, shaped by the trends of the period.
Before the Queen occupied them, these rooms had been the residence of Pedro Carlos (1786–1812), who held a prominent position at court as an Infante of both Spain and Portugal.
