Mariano Fortuny Marsal - The Artist’s Sons in a Japanese Classroom [1874]

Mariano Fortuny Marsal - The Artist’s Sons in a Japanese Classroom [1874], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Mariano Fortuny Marsal (Reus, June 11, 1836 - Rome, November 21, 1874) was the leading Catalan painter of his day, with an international reputation. His brief career encompassed works on a variety of subjects common in the art of the period, including the Romantic fascination with Orientalist themes, historicist genre painting, military painting of Spanish colonial expansion, as well as a prescient loosening of brush-stroke and colour. Fortuny paintings are colourful, with a vivacious iridescent brushstroke that at times recalls the softness of Rococo painting but also anticipates impressionist brushwork. He died somewhat suddenly from an attack of tertian ague, or malaria, contracted while painting in the open air at Naples and Portici in the summer of 1874.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 44 x 93 cm]

Mariano Fortuny Marsal & Raimundo de Garreta Madrazo - Garden of Fortuny [c.1872]

Mariano Fortuny Marsal & Raimundo de Garreta Madrazo - Garden of Fortuny [c.1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In 1871, Fortuny settled in Granada, in a house at the foot of the Alhambra and there painted the garden surrounding his studio, full of vegetation and the atmosphere captured on a bright sunny summer afternoon. This picture appeared unfinished in Paris in 1875, at which time it was most likely bought by Ramon Errazu. Later, around 1877, Raimundo de Madrazo finished and signed the work, including the figure of his sister Cecilia, wife of Fortuny. This painting entered the Prado Museum as part of the legacy of Ramon de Errazu.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on wood, 40 x 28 cm]