Was the firstborn son of the painter Joaquim Manuel da Rocha? At 25, he enrolled with his brother João Francisco da Rocha at the Public Class of Drawing where his father was a teacher.

He distinguished himself as a painter and etching artist, having also been dedicated to music (he was a distinguished harpsichord player) and literature.

In 1783 Leonardo da Rocha left for China in the company of the newly-elected Bishop of Beijing, Alexandre de Gouveia, as he had signed a contract with the Queen’s Government to exercise his professional teachings at the Chinese court.

Having embarked with the new bishop of Beijing, the painter arrived in Macau, and then in Canton shortly afterwards, where he refused to leave the boat out of regret for what he had undertaken. As a result, he returned to Macau, where he was arrested and sent back to Lisbon under the queen’s orders.

In Lisbon, he was received favourably by the Marquis of Alorna, who had sponsored his troubled trip to the East, and shortly thereafter he married Eusébia Bárbara Valadas. In 1808, for the second time, Leonardo da Rocha set out again, this time to Madeira, from where he would never return.

His stay on the island aroused the interest of some notable Madeirans in the creation of a Drawing and Painting Class in the city of Funchal, proposing the painter Joaquim Leonardo da Rocha as the regent of such an undertaking, something that did end up being realised by royal charter of 17 July 1809. In the exercise of his duties, the painter wrote a didactic booklet entitled “General measurements of the human body arranged in dialogue, and an easy method of use by the royal drawing and painting class on the island of Madeira in 1810”, which was published in Lisbon in 1813.

Leonardo da Rocha’s long stay in Funchal is the least known phase of his biography. In addition to the various portraits that attest to his presence in Madeira, little is known about the author’s life besides his address on Rua de Santa Maria, according to the death certificate declaring his passing on 08 May 1825.

Four pieces of Joaquim Leonardo da Rocha’s work can be found in the Quinta das Cruzes Museum: the Portrait of King João VI, the Portrait of Manuel Serrão; The Portrait of Brigadier Jorge Frederico Lecor and the View from the Islet Fort (Fortress of Our Lady of Conception on Pontilha Islet), the only known landscape painted by the portraitist.

Credits: Quinta das Cruzes Museum.