COVER N. 543 - BRASIL

Postmark: A CC Beiramar Shopping Florianopolis - SC 14.11.2024

Posted on the 14th November; Received on the 11th December 2024

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The second cover from Brazil that I got on the same day, this time from Lucia. Muito obrigado, Lucia.

 

For the main postage on the cover, Lucia used a pair of stamps from the recent issue dedicated to unconventional food plants, in itself an unconventional theme too, albeit a rather interesting one.

Some of these stamps had already been used by Luis on cover #502 so this is an adequate opportunity  for continuing the comments I incuded regarding that particular cover.

As such these two stamps are part of the  6 x "1º Porte de Carta" set issued on 23ABR2024 by the Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos, dedicated to unconventional food plants. 

Further to the  stamp illustrated with a  Vinagreira (Hibiscus sabdariffa), that had already been used on cover #502, Lucia used a stamp illustrated with the Xanthosoma taioba, or just Taioba, in Brazil, a member of the Araceae family, whose leaves and corms are edible and very commonly so.

Candido Portinari was an outstanding painter and muralist. during his lifetime he produced a large corpus of works which can now be seen in such important places like the United Nations Headquarters, the Library of Congress or the MOMA  in the US, or the Museu de Arte de S. Paulo, in his native Brazil.

His work is profoundly marked by social themes as  typical of the neo-realist school and I am glad had the chance to see one of his paintings once in the Portuguese Museum of Neo-Realism, in Vila Franca de Xira, in a temporary exhibition.

On 26MAY2004 Correios do Brasil issued a five stamp definitive set  (0.55; 0.80; 0.95; 1.15 and 1.50 Reais) themed on the missing paintings of Candido Portinari. 

In fact, most of the painter's works are "hidden away" in private collections so his son João Candido Portinari founded in 1979 "Projecto Portinari" with which he aims at giving the people the opportunity to get to know the invaluable work of his father.

This stamp set should be seen in the light of this objective too, I presume, and the  1.5 Real stamp  which can be seen on the lower left corner of the cover, depicts a painting called Marcel  Gontrau, created as part of a set of illustrations for an edition of André Maurois' Romans.

 The Postmark indicates that the letter was mailed from a post office installed in a shopping mall - Beira Mar Shopping - in the city of Florianópolis, the Capital city of the State of Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil.