Wall paintings
Birds and branches.
Thaismay — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vladimir Benincasa / Grupo de Pesquisa Patrimônio, Cidades e Territórios — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vladimir Benincasa / Grupo de Pesquisa Patrimônio, Cidades e Territórios — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vladimir Benincasa / Grupo de Pesquisa Patrimônio, Cidades e Territórios — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vladimir Benincasa / Grupo de Pesquisa Patrimônio, Cidades e Territórios — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vladimir Benincasa / Grupo de Pesquisa Patrimônio, Cidades e Territórios — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vladimir Benincasa / Grupo de Pesquisa Patrimônio, Cidades e Territórios — CC BY-SA 4.0
Fazenda Resgate is one of the most celebrated coffee estates of the Paraíba Valley. It headed a vast farming complex owned by Commander Manuel de Aguiar Vallim, one of Bananal's richest coffee planters, and records of the time say some six hundred enslaved people worked across his complex in the 1870s. Its main house was listed as national heritage in 1969 and restored from 1970. It is an early nineteenth-century house remodelled in 1855 with a neoclassical façade and a central stone staircase, and from 1858 the Spanish painter José María Villaronga decorated its walls and small chapel. The entrance hall shows the farm's crops with coffee at the centre, and the reception room is painted with Brazilian birds among fruiting branches, set off by gilded details. Visits are usually by appointment, and groups need to book ahead.
Birds and branches.
Stone staircase.
And slavery's memory.
Eastern countryside of Bananal, Paraíba Valley, São Paulo state
Better to call first; visits are usually arranged by appointment.