The story is told on the Facebook page of the museum itself: "João rides his bike to the Museum every day. A while ago he arrived here full of scratches and bruises after taking a huge tumble, but he hasn't stopped defending the use of bicycles in the city tooth and nail (thank goodness it was only a few scratches!)."
João Alpuim Botelho has been the director of the Bordalo Pinheiro Museum in Campo Grande since 2014. "it's no accident" who is so fond of the drawing "Uma Légua Desastrosa", by Manuel Gustavo Bordalo Pinheiro, which will be part of the museum's rooms until February 2021. online through exposure Manuel Gustavo Bordalo Pinheiro | Histórias Desenhadas.
"I, who cycle to the Museum every day, have a lot of fun with this drawing because I can see myself in the cyclist's adventures", says on the Museum's Facebook page. João explains that the drawing "it's a parody of the use of the bicycle, which was a novelty at the end of the 19th century"adding that "Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and his son Manuel Gustavo published much of their work in newspapers, where they followed and commented on the events of their time". "If what made them famous was their social and political criticism, it's also fun to do a lighter exercise and look today, more than a hundred years on, at what these newspapers showed us on a daily basis“he explains.
