Lisbon, third quarter of the 17th century Tile panel with polychrome painting Inv. 1362/3 This panel from Quinta dos Chavões, in Cartaxo, a property that belonged to the counts of Unhão, forms part of a much larger group that originally covered the walls, benches and flower beds of a terrace there. Their outdoor positioning recalls the tile claddings from the same period in the palace of the marquises of Fronteira, which were more extensive and significant but with similarities to these tiles, both in the figuration and the succession of scenes that do not adhere to a precise iconographic programme, intended instead to be a light-hearted decoration for a place of leisure. The panel in question depicts a magnificent coach of the period, still open, adorned with brocade fabrics, driven by a coachman, also carrying a ‘tiger’ (boy employed as a groom who would perch at the back of the carriage) and followed by two men on horseback. Inside sits a nobleman, wearing on his chest the cross of Christ, which is also repeated on his cape. The prominence of the cross seems so deliberate that it has been suggested that it alludes to the proposal of marriage between Maria de Castro, daughter of the 7th Count of Unhão, and her cousin João da Silva Tello de Meneses, 1st Count of Aveiras and Viceroy of India. Álvaro da Silveira, key keeper of the Order of Christ, acted as an intermediary in the negotiation of this marriage and may be the figure sitting in the coach.