Viana do Alentejo

The municipality of Viana do Alentejo describes its traditional pottery as much like pottery elsewhere in Portugal: clay was fetched from the pit, cleaned and prepared in the workshop, thrown on the wheel and then fired. Workshops were patriarchal, and the potter's trade passed from father to son. This small household economy changed when demand rose, because the potter then hired day labourers. Work inside the pottery was also divided by sex.

The Médico de Sousa school broke that inherited pattern by offering the craft to anyone who wished to learn it. Founded on 28 October 1893, it taught almost every process of the potter, the kiln hand (forneiro de louça) and the ceramic painter, and it ranks among the first industrial schools in the country. It was linked to the União Vinícola e Oleícola do Sul, the country's first cooperative winery, and townspeople named it after the Sousa family in gratitude for what the family did for the town and the municipality. Names tied to its teaching include the painter Júlio Resende, the ceramicist Armando Correia, Aníbal Alcino and Francisco Lagarto.