At age 16, he joined the Army, fighting for Queen Maria II during the Siege of Porto.

In 1834, he moved to Lisbon, where he was initially tutored by a French master; he was then taught by António Manuel da Fonseca, and attended the newly-created Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

[1] Disillusioned with academic teaching, he left with Francisco Augusto Metrass for Italy in 1844, sponsored by his father.

In London, he contacted with the Pre-Raphaelites, and was artistically influenced by the portraits of Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Lawrence, as well as those of Rigaud and Winterhalter.

He returned to Lisbon, with Metrass, in 1850: eager to elicit change in the Portuguese artistic scene, they organised an art exhibition that introduced Romanticism in portraiture to Portugal.