SALVADOR SÁNCHEZ-BARBUDO MORALES (Jerez de la... Lot 33

SALVADOR SÁNCHEZ-BARBUDO MORALES (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1857 - Rome, 1917). "Religious", 1885. Watercolour on paper. Signed, dated and located in the lower left area. Size: 106 x 70 cm; 113 x 79 cm (frame). Work carried out in Rome in the year 1885 in which the artist portrays a religious. Strictly frontally in terms of the composition, the hands joined on his chest and the wide open mouth indicate that the author has captured the protagonist officiating a religious service. His spontaneity is unusual in portraits of religious people. The loose, vibrant brushstrokes, without losing the rigour of the drawing, show an image dominated by a pictorialist aesthetic that was very much in keeping with the taste of the period. Furthermore, the subject matter is also of great relevance, as during the 19th century the Church was going through a crisis of faith, so much so that it turned to the arts as an ally in the transmission of its institutional values. Interested in drawing and painting from an early age, Sánchez-Barbudo began his training in the workshop of the restorer Pedro Vera. At the age of nineteen he moved to Seville to study at the Provincial School of Fine Arts, thanks to the support of his protector and patron, the Marquis del Castillo, where he became a pupil of José Villegas. In 1878 he travelled to Madrid to further his training, remaining in the capital for four years. In 1881 he took part in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts and was awarded a third-class medal for his work "Un salón de esgrima" ("A Fencing Salon"). The following year he went to Rome with his master. Due to his master's influence, and given that Villegas was a friend of Rosales, Fortuny, Zamacois and others, as well as a painter with a magnificent clientele (Vanderbilt, Stuard, Krupp...), Sánchez-Barbudo was initiated into the fashionable genre, costumbrista historicism (known as casacón subject matter). Fascinated by the artistic atmosphere of the Italian capital, Sánchez-Barbudo decided to settle in the city and, from then on, to make the city the protagonist of his painting. In addition to the themes of casacons, he also produced small-format paintings of high society scenes and landscapes, and was particularly noted for his portraits. He occasionally sent works to the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts in Madrid. In 1884 he sent to Spain the monumental canvas entitled "Hamlet. Last Scene", with which he won a second medal at the National Exhibition of the same year. He exported his works especially to England, where his historicist genre paintings were extraordinarily well received, and he himself enjoyed a reputation as an exquisite painter. Sánchez-Barbudo showed in his works a perfect mastery of the basics of the genre: a skilful combination of bourgeois naturalism and loosely executed preciosity. His brushstrokes are rapid and precise, and he gives the chromaticism a totally personal vibrancy and variety. He worked with small touches, both in the figures and in the scenes, paying special attention to the atmosphere. He was also an excellent watercolourist and engraver.