"Infinite engraver, Master Marçal has been a generous, dialoguing and wise communicator of knowledge to the younger generations of artists at CPS.

As a man of values and poet of affections, he has recently held an exhibition with an enormous significance in Setúbal, the city where he was born and which, quite justly, graced him with the City Medal of Honour. The exhibit was a gift to his countrymen; a return to the silences and the first charms of his childhood.

On that occasion, when I accompanied Master Marçal through his city, his work acquired a splendorous sense and a better understanding to my eyes.

I could see it at dawn, in the departing boats, cloaked in the mists of the Sado waters; in the glowing sun that mediates the day; in the sea to be discovered that looms from afar; late in the afternoon, on a walking tour, through the foliage of Arrábida; in the fish arriving from the fishing labour at nightfall, or in the shimmering darkness at the end of the day. And this engraving sums all that up so well."

João Prates