The fundamental works not to be missed from the Bécquer exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts

Manuel Piñanes Garcia-Olias He is the curator of the exhibition. This graduate in Geography and History from the University of Seville is an antiques dealer but above all a deep connoisseur of the work of the Bécquer family. In fact, although he was not able to complete his doctoral thesis on Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer, in 2014 he published the book “Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer, the guardian of the Alcazar” (Seville City Hall) in collaboration with Jesus Rubiowho had produced a monograph on José Bécquer. Both also wrote separate texts in the exhibition catalogue. Additionally, Piñanes is a prominent art collector and owns watercolors, lithographs and oil paintings. For this exhibition, he has loaned nearly thirty works.

The curator declares that “it has been a long time since there had been an exhibition on Sevillian romantic painting at Bellas Artes, which is why we wanted to do something about the works and the painters, including the lesser known side of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer as a designer”. After developing a first exhibition project, the director of Fine Arts, Valme Munoztook it over a year ago. “She wanted it to be the central exhibition of the year. We got to work making lists of paintings and other works that could be exhibited. I should point out that many of these pieces are in private collections because they were scattered and these collectors were very collaborative in almost all cases. Institutions like the Prado Museum, the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastian, the Museum of Romanticism or the Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne, to name a few, have also made things easier. I also cannot forget the entire team of the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville, highlighting not only the role of its director, but also the coordination of Ignacio Cano and Blanca Muruve, the excellent work of the restoration team and the editorial coordination of the catalog by Virginia Marqués.

The last painting by José Domínguez Bécquer

This art expert highlights the watercolorist aspect of José Bécquer (Seville, 1805-1841), “which then developed in prints that we exhibited almost in their entirety. He died very young and his painting was dispersed very quickly. The works of the Bécquers are almost all in private collections and are not easy to locate. There are about five that we have not been able to locate. From the initiator of this line of artists, Piñanes particularly stands out “Dancing at a Sale”which belongs to the Abelló collection. “It’s a medium format for what this painter’s paintings are. Behind the canvas is a contemporary label indicating that it is the last painting he created before his death. It was painted in 1840 and he died in 1841 at the age of 36.

As for his first cousin, Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer (Seville, 1816-1879), he was the eldest in the saga because he lived 62 years. The curator of the exhibition highlights three very striking scenes from Seville in his production. These are oil paintings “Real Maestranza Square in Seville” (1855), “The Cross of the Fields” (1854) and ‘The Plaza de San Francisco in Seville as the Brotherhood of Nuestro Padre Jesús de la Pasión passes by’ (1853). “These three paintings offer a very beautiful vision of Seville and I like them because they reflect the city’s sky very well. The truth is that we brought very good things from Joaquín like his “Self-portrait dressed as a hunter” because it is a little different from the others.

Concerning Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer (Seville, 1833-Madrid, 1870), died at the age of 36, besides the famous “Portrait of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer” (around 1862), which was restored especially for the occasion by the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, this antique dealer particularly values ​​the customary scenes that the artist painted in Moncayo. In this sense, we can cite paintings such as ‘The present. Big party in Moncayo (Aragon), the day before the patron saint (1866)’ -which belongs to the Prado Museum- or “Interior of a house in a town in Aragon, when the family gathers in the afternoon to have chocolate”which comes from the Prado, but is kept at Bellas Artes. “These are superb paintings of Valeriano’s mature stage. This indicates that if he had lived a little longer, perhaps he would have evolved towards realism, leaving the trappings of romanticismsomething that is nothing more than an assumption that we use. We don’t know where he would have gone if he had lived more than 36 years,” says Piñanes.

This sample also reflects the great value of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (Seville, 1836-Madrid, 1870) as a designer, a facet that was overshadowed by his brief but transcendental literary career. Jesús Rubio wrote a book about the artist Gustavo Adolfo. Only Bécquer’s drawings in pencil and pen are known, no paintings are preserved.. In the exhibition you can see a drawing of a gypsy belonging to Piñanes and another humorous one. “Almost all of Gustavo Adolfo’s drawings are found in albums. These were not public or visible drawings. In the 19th century, ladies welcomed artists into their homes and left them little details that they included in their friends’ albums. The two that we exhibit here – the first is dated between 1855 and 1865 and the second, between 1858 and 1870 – belonged to Julia Espín and come from the National Library. There is another album with drawings by Bécquer which was sold at Durán Arte y Subastas in Madrid around twenty years ago. A private collector bought it and at the moment we don’t know where it is,” explains Manuel Piñanes.