Gonzalo Bilbao Martínez (Seville, 1860 - Madrid, 1938). "The Lady and the Shawl". Oil on canvas. Attached certificate of authenticity issued by Don Gerardo Pérez Calero.

Lot description

GONZALO BILBAO MARTÍNEZ (Seville, 1860 - Madrid, 1938). "The Lady and the Shawl". Oil on canvas. Attached certificate of authenticity issued by Don Gerardo Pérez Calero. The frame has slight damage at the corners. Signed in the lower left corner. Measurements: 170 x 101 cm; 188 x 122 cm (frame). Gonzalo Bilbao has carried out in this occasion a portrait of an unidentified lady, full body, placed frontally and dressed with a wide manila shawl that covers her completely and looks with grace. She is leaning with her right arm on a tall flowerpot with a vase of flowers, while she is holding flowers on her head with a matching comb, necklace and earrings. She holds a fan in her right hand, while her opposite hand, which holds a wedding ring on her ring finger, is placed in a jar. The artist became one of the most renowned artists of his time and enjoyed a privileged social position, both in Seville and, above all, in Madrid, in the courtly circle of the Alphonsines and the upper middle classes. He thus became the favourite portraitist of the ladies and young ladies of distinguished society, as well as of artists, writers and politicians. The present work forms part of the list of ladies portrayed with panache by the Sevillian artist. His aesthetic evolution, which he maintained throughout his long career as a multifaceted artist, led him along the different paths of the last quarter of the 19th century and the first third of the next. This anonymous portrait, which is characterised by the use of a modern technique with a loose palette and artificial colours in line with a kind of neo-Impressionism with Fauvist touches, fits in chronologically with the latter. Gonzalo Bilbao took up drawing as a child and in 1880 he began his career as a painter. Around this time he travelled to Italy and France with Jiménez de Aranda. In Rome he worked with the painter José Villegas Cordero and travelled around the various Italian capitals, painting urban and rural views until his return to Spain in 1884. In the following years he visited Rome again, travelled around Spain and also went to Morocco, Paris and Munich. In Spain he taught painting, initially as a private tutor and, from 1903, as Jiménez de Aranda's successor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville. In 1904 he married and took up residence in Madrid, where he continued his teaching work at the San Fernando Academy. During his career he took part in numerous fine arts exhibitions, both national and foreign, being awarded a third medal at the Universal Exhibition of Paris (1889) and the International Exhibition of Barcelona (1891), a single medal at the Universal Exhibition of Chicago (1893), and a gold medal at the International Exhibitions of Berlin (1899), Munich (1905), Buenos Aires (1910), Santiago de Chile (1910), San Francisco (1915) and Panama (1916). He also took part in the National Fine Arts Nationals, winning second medals in 1887 and 1892, first in 1899 and 1901 and an honourable medal in 1915. A traditional painter, representative of Spanish genre painting, his pictures were colourful depictions of Andalusian life and its most popular figures, and he also painted landscapes, figures and portraits, depicting prominent figures of the time such as King Alfonso XIII and the actress Carmen Díaz. The light and vitality of his compositions bring his language closer to the Impressionist aesthetic, focusing on the essential representation of atmospheres and landscapes. Gonzalo Bilbao is represented in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville, where he has a room devoted entirely to his work, the Museo del Prado, the Museo Jaume Morera in Lleida and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Cordoba, among others, as well as in private collections both in Spain and abroad.