How the Portuguese saw their maritime force: Photography of merchant and war vessels in Portugal before the First World War

Starting in the mid nineteenth century, Portugal began modernising its merchant fleet and Navy, lagging a few decades behind other European nations. Simultaneously, photography began its development within the country. Around the turn of the century, the adoption of the halftone process allowed photographs to circulate widely in the press. This study investigates photography's role in portraying and communicating the evolution of the Portuguese fleet to wider audiences, as a tool of defence and imperial control, as well as in the civilian context. Employing Barthes’ semiotic analysis, which includes juxtaposing photographic and textual sources, this article reveals how photographers and the illustrated press presented the Portuguese fleet's evolution as representing progress, national pride and political affirmation – for regime (monarchic and republican) legitimisation and for Portugal's ‘civilising mission’ in Africa and Asia – even though the fleet lagged behind other nations’ fleets. The sources include photographs kept in different archives and those published in the illustrated press.