Queluz is famed for the glory of its gardens, which include a large topiary parterre laid out in the manner of Le Nôtre at the rear of the palace
The Flemish influences, including the canals, in the garden are the work of the Dutch gardener Gerald van der Kolk, who assisted Robillon from 1760. Formal terraces and walkways are given extra interest by statuary and fountains. The dominant feature of the principal parterre is the “Portico dos Cavalinhos”, a garden temple flanked by two allegorical equestrian statues depicting Fames, and two sphinxes surreally dressed in 18th-century costume, combining the formal and the fantastic. This surreal theme continues elsewhere in the gardens where such motifs as the rape of the Sabines and the death of Abel alternate with statuary of donkeys dressed in human clothing. Deeper in the gardens is a grotto complete with a cascade. Later to be a popular feature in Portuguese gardens, the Queluz cascade was the first artificial waterfall to be constructed near Lisbon.
An avenue of huge magnolias forms the approach to the classical Robillon wing of the palace, while from the wing a double staircase leads to the canal. More than 100 metres (330 ft) long, the walls of the canal are decorated with tiled panels depicting seascapes and associated scenes. This is the largest of a series of canals in the gardens bordered with chinoiserie-style azulejo tiles. Fed by a stream, the sluice gates to the canals are only opened in May. During the 18th century, the canals were the setting for fêtes champêtres during which fully rigged ships would sail in processions with figures aboard in allegorical costumes.
The gardens also contain a fountain with tritons and dolphins which has been attributed to Bernini. There are further fountains and statuary in the lower gardens, including an important collection of statues by the British sculptor John Cheere (1709–1787). These gardens are set within tall hedges of yew and cypress, and magnolia and mulberry trees planted by Marshal Junot during the French occupation in the Napoleonic wars.
Royal Gardens
The Queluz National Palace Gardens cover about 16 hectares of the former Royal Quinta de Queluz. Celebrations of the Royal Family, especially between 1752 and 1786, constitute an important landscape and heritage value, being considered one of the most important historical gardens of Portugal.
Robillion or Lions Staircase
Shells Waterfall
Beast Cages
Tile Channel (Ribeira do Jamor)
The entire area of the Staircase and the Tiled Canal was an important recreational hub, where spaces were built specifically for the leisure and entertainment of the Royal Family. Somewhere in this area was the Barraca Rica, a wooden pavilion that served as an inn for the Royal People, completed in 1757 and now missing.
Flanking the Cascade of the Shells, under the terrace of the Robillion Pavilion, the cages were built in 1822 where exotic animals such as lionesses, tigers and monkeys were held captive.
This area has always been a very important recreational center where several spaces dedicated to leisure and entertainment were built. In the cages they still survived, in 1833, during the bloody period of the liberal struggles, two lionesses, two tigers and some monkeys, testimony to a taste for the exotic that always existed in Queluz.
Ribeira do Jamor, which runs through the entire park of Queluz from north to south, is contained in a channel lined with tile panels, spanning 115 meters. This Tile Channel was formerly known as Lago Grande. In the central part of the canal stood Casa do Lago, a “house of fresh” decorated in chinoiserie to the taste of the time. Also called the Chinese House or House of Music, it played the Queen’s chamber orchestra on summer afternoons, while the royal family sailed over the mirrored waters that, trapped by a floodgate system, reflected the interior wall tiles. , with representations of palaces, seaports and ruins of antiquity. At night, along the canal, torches in the shape of gilded carvings were lit.
Here are two magnificent sculptural groups by John Cheere, representing Bacchus and Ariadne and Venus and Adonis , once placed on the top of the facade of Princess Mary Francisca Benedita’s rooms, facing the Garden of Malta.
Cain and Abel (John Cheere) in the Plateau Square
This sculptural lead group that once topped the throne room facade is located on the Plateau Square, according to an original marble by Giambologna (1529-1608). at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
In the Largo dos Plátanos, walking towards the Lake of Medals, you can still see the sculptures Aeneas and Ankises and the Abduction of Proserpina , also by John Cheere.
Medal Lake
This is the largest lake in the gardens (1764), shaped like a star octagon. In its surroundings presents two statues of John Cheere: Apollo and Diana .
Designed by Robillion in 1764, it is endowed with a complex system of spurs.
Fountain of Neptune
Imposing stone sculptural ensemble (1677), representing a Neptune surrounded by newts, by Ercole Ferrata (1610-1686), disciple and collaborator of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Coming from Quinta do Senhor da Serra in Belas, the Fountain was assembled in this space in 1945. The lake is made later.
Training Stables of the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art (EPAE)
Queen D. Amelia Stables (1904) and EPAE Stables
Tea Pavilion (former 19th century greenhouse)
Pella Game ,
Built 1758. Also called Ball Game or Mesh Game.
Botanical Garden
Built between 1769 and 1776. Located at the bottom of the Quinta, it is bordered by the balustrades placed there in 1800. Also called Greenhouse Garden, where D. Pedro III planted pineapples, was adorned with lakes, busts and statuary.
Grand Cascade
Performed by Robillion in the 1770s, it is the focal point of the garden’s main structural axis, as well as the most spectacular part of the entire water and pond game system. Water springs from a monumental scowl.
The waterfall is lined with carved stone elements and rocks from Cascais. It was ornamented with stone and lead statuary that has not lasted until today.
Lago das Conchas
Stone fantasy inspired by the jewelery motifs commonly used in silver salves. Work of Jean-Baptiste Robillion, disciple in Paris of the famous goldsmith Thomas Germain. Robillion came to Portugal in 1749, first as a goldsmith in the service of Dom Pedro and later as an architect of Queluz.
Superior Gardens – Suspension Garden and Maltese Garden
The tradition of apparatus gardens in which Queluz subscribes dictates that immediately beneath the windows of the main façade should be parterres . In the Palace we find two gardens that follow this precept: the Suspension (or Neptune) Garden and the Garden of Malta. Designed according to French geometric models, these two formal gardens are separated from each other and from the rest of the park by a balustrade topped by the Portico dos Cavaleiros.
The decoration of box -shaped flowerbeds suggests a broderie parterre, for which large quantities of shrubs and flowers were already being commissioned in 1758. The whole set is decorated with lakes, vases, urns and marble statues, mostly from Italy, and lead sculptures from the studio. London by John Cheere (commissioned in 1755 and 1756).
Nereide Lake (lead sculptures attributed to John Cheere)
Monkey Lake
Lake Neptune (lead sculptures attributed to John Cheere)
Sculptures depicting the Four Seasons (John Cheere)
Sculptures of Mars and Minerva (John Cheere) flanking the main entrance to the Façade of Ceremonies
The Cavaleiros Portico (1773) features “Heroic Fame Riding the Pegasus”, two equestrian statues that delimit the passage from the Suspension Garden to the park and mark the former main access axis to the palace, bounded to the north by the Facade of Ceremonies and the south by the Great Cascade.
Gate of Ajuda
It gave access to the road that connected Queluz Palace to Ajuda Palace, the Portuguese royal family’s residence in Lisbon, until 1794, when it was destroyed by a serious fire, making Queluz the permanent residence.
National Palace of Queluz
Located between Lisbon and Sintra, the National Palace of Queluz is one of the leading examples of the rococo and neoclassical architectural styles from the second half of the eighteenth century in Portugal.
Commissioned in 1747 by the future King Pedro III, married to Queen Maria I, the residence was initially designed as a summer house and thus a favoured place for the royal family’s leisure and entertainment but which became their permanent home from 1794 through to their departure for Brazil in 1807, following the country’s invasion by Napoleon’s armies.
Grandiose meeting rooms, places for worship and private rooms follow on from each other in an intimate interconnection with the gardens as a fundamental part of these pleasure-inducing surroundings. Along the spectacular Lions Staircase, by the french artist Jean-Baptiste Robillion, we arrive at the monumental Tiled Canal with its great panels depicting seaports and courtly scenes. The garden pathways are enlivened by the italian and british sculptures, in their main with mythological themes, and highlighting the set of lead sculptures by the London-based artist John Cheere alongside the numerous lakes and other water features.
The evolution of the Court taste throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, strongly influenced by French and Italian as well as English taste, is particularly presented in the Palace interiors, historical Gardens and collections.
The National Palace of Queluz is now managed by the public company Parques de Sintra-Monte da Lua (PSML), established in 2000 following the recognition by UNESCO, in 1995, of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra as a World Heritage Site.