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Throughout all times, something that defines us as humans is our ambition to know and explain the reason for what surrounds us: the flight of birds, rain or death. Science, philosophy and even religion have tried to offer explanations for these questions, the case of Egyptian cosmology being one of the most interesting.

In the Egyptian civilization, the nature that surrounded them was a manifestation of the superior and divine forces that ordered the world. For example, the solar disk Aton was the physical appearance of deity Ra who, in turn, was responsible for all the good that light provides. This explanation advances to the point of identifying their gods with part of nature, the animals.

Anubis, god protector of the dead and their guide in the underworld, was personified in the form of a jackal. Why assign this animal to the god? Jackals prowled among the cliffs and boulders surrounding the necropolises in search of carrion to feed on. The Egyptians, seeing these animals in arid and unpopulated areas, considered them to act as guardians of their deceased and, therefore, the assimilation between one and the other is evident.

Cats were one of the favorite pets in the Egyptian culture for millennia, so much so that the idea that they worshipped them has come down to us. The Egyptians did not consider the animal itself to be a god, in this case, but rather that it was under the protection of the goddess Bastet and therefore possessed a special dignity. Cats were cared for, firstly, because of the benefits they brought to the domestic environment (eliminating mosquitoes or rats, carriers of diseases) and secondly, because of their special link with one of the main figures of the Egyptian pantheon. It is therefore logical that this goddess Bastet is considered the patroness of the home.

Animal care continued even after death. To endow an animal with the privilege of mummification is to highlight its dignity and importance. The case of a cat mummy, especially during the Ptolemaic period, is the product of an offering. Within the Egyptian rituals, making offerings was the most common, sometimes it could be food, drink or the animal linked to the god. Ibis for the protector of knowledge Thot, crocodiles for Sobek and for Bastet, his cats. Analyses of the feline mummies have revealed that, in many cases, they did not die a natural death. This would explain the existence of an industry related to offerings. They raised the cats to adulthood only to turn them into mummies to be offered as offerings to the goddess. Logically, these offerings would have a high cost and would generate a source of income for the embalmers, breeders and priests of the temple. The demand for these cat mummies was so high that even fakes have been found, that is to say, empty mummies only with the appearance of being that of a cat.

The Egyptians understood that a god could manifest itself in various forms, the kind and protective face of the home was Bastet, identified as we said with a cat. Her appearance metamorphosed into that of a lioness when her attributes were that of chaos, fury and war. Good and evil gathered in the same god that demanded different representations. For example, the goddess of love Hathor was represented as a tender cow but her male side, the bull, was identified with Apis.

Apis was venerated in the city of Memphis, one of the oldest cities of mankind. There, a bull or an ox was considered a living reincarnation of the god on earth. A god among men. The ox lived in luxury, was always cared for by two twins until his death, bathed, living in a stable-palace among flowers and incense. This devotion continued after his death. The immense corpse was mummified with the same honors as that of a pharaoh, official mourning and feast with procession to his mausoleum. The serapeum of Sakara housed the mummies, hundreds of sacred animals in sarcophagi of more than sixty tons of stone. Her cult spread throughout the Roman Empire, which is why the artistic manifestations of Apis were constant until the 4th century.

The 15th century is perhaps one of the most important periods in history and the turning point on the road to the modern world. This time of change is the scenario in which the Middle Ages are gradually abandoned until the arrival of the Renaissance. It is a time of economic prosperity and the rise of a bourgeoisie that, like the Church and the aristocracy, will become patrons of art. The Spanish case is especially rich due to the fact that it is a peninsula with different kingdoms and their corresponding influences from abroad. The noblemen of Castile, for example, obtained lucrative profits from the export of merino wool throughout Europe, especially in the Flemish territories, such as Bruges or Antwerp. This fruitful commercial relationship allowed the arrival of masterpieces of the so-called International Gothic and later of the Flemish Primitives. Its impact on local artists was crucial to the point that they began to imitate not only the iconography, but also the way of treating the fabrics, the landscape or the gestures of the characters that came closer to reality offering an unprecedented realism.

Setdart’s next auction, on June 22, features an outstanding group of works from this period, including the four panels by Gil de Encinas (lot 35300602), which perfectly illustrate how Flanders left its mark on the artists of Castile. In these paintings, from the predella of an altarpiece, we can see how the evolution towards the Renaissance taste is taking place with a greater expressiveness of the characters and the insertion of classical ruins in the backgrounds. The following work from our catalog clearly exemplifies this transition, “La Natividad” by Alejo Fernández.

The other Spanish kingdom with the greatest hegemony during the 15th century was Aragon, the diverse group of territories that included Zaragoza, Valencia, the Catalan lands and Mallorca. A kingdom that overlooked the Mediterranean and was deeply marked by its relationship with the commercial ports. We must not forget that their presence here was that of an empire with possessions and conquests in Sardinia, Greece or Sicily. The strong link with Italy can be appreciated within the Aragonese school. The advances in perspective, the use of color or the magnificent backgrounds in gold leaf and stews are of clear Italian influence. All these features survived until almost the sixteenth century, almost as signs of identity of the Aragonese masters.

We offer as excellent examples of late Gothic in the Crown of Aragon these two panels by the master Juan de la Abadía with scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist. The brightly colored architectures are reminiscent of Giotto’s works and the golden sky is reminiscent of Tuscan works, just to mention some of the features that are closer to Italian models.

The Iberian Peninsula was the point of confluence of the main artistic currents of the 15th century. Trade and conquest accelerated the process of change from Gothic to Renaissance. The Castilian and Aragonese schools managed to combine Flemish and Italian traditions in their painting, resulting in their own unique identity in Europe.

With the artistic avant-gardes, art underwent a true revolution that meant the complete modernization of the traditional sculptural language. At the national level, this renovation is engraved with the name of Jorge Oteiza.

Jorge Oteiza’s sculpture and thought find their origin and roots in the deepest and most primitive identity and culture of his native land. In fact, his work cannot be understood in all its complexity without taking into account his relationship with the Basque Country and the delicate historical context in which it developed. After some years dominated by a kind of cultural lethargy, the Basque country urgently needed to find a revulsive that would bring back the splendor of past times. Such a long-awaited reaction came in the second half of the 20th century with the confluence of a group of artists who came together in various movements such as GAUR, EMEN ORAIN and DANOK.

However, the definitive impulse that raised the Basque artistic practice to the top came from the hands of two names of their own: Oteiza and Chillida, who with their innovations would mark a turning point in the history of Basque art that went beyond our borders and echoed around the world.

In 1948 and after 15 years of frenetic experimentation that led him to travel around South America, Oteiza returned to his homeland imbued by avant-garde movements such as cubism, constructivism and Kazimir Malevich suprematism, but also by a deep knowledge of the megalithic statuary of Amerindian cultures. However, his return did not turn out to be as he had imagined. The panorama he found was clearly bleak; there was nothing left of the cultural impetus that had flourished during the Republic.

From his return until the end of the fifties, Jorge Oteiza’s presence in Spanish art and in the main international centers became permanent, and he became a key figure in the artistic events that took place. All his energy and strong conviction was channeled towards a renewal of Basque art, based on the affirmation of its identity as a people. With Oteiza, therefore, art once again played an essential role in society as a reflection, in this case, of Basque sensibility.

During these years, Oteiza fought tirelessly and vehemently to unite and revitalize the decayed Basque artistic world, but he came up against the indifference of the institutions, both those of Franco’s regime and those of Basque nationalism in hiding. His exhaustion in the face of the situation led him in 1959 to radically abandon sculpture, just when his career was at its peak, after winning the First Prize for Sculpture at the Sao Paulo Biennial (1957).

Fortunately, Oteiza’s decision was not definitive and in 1970 he resumed his sculptural activity, resuming and concluding old projects that he had left unfinished after his sudden retirement. It was then that he decided to devote himself to his chalk laboratory, the origin of which is to be found in the plaster models he used as the basis for his sculptures. In it, Oteiza gave free rein to all his theoretical approaches until he managed to scrutinize that interior space of the sculpture that the artist defined as the sacred space linked to the Basque prehistoric culture and its megalithic monuments.

It will be at this stage, when guided by the ambition to build space, not only from an architectural presence but also from its metaphysical and spiritual dimension, Oteiza decides to use two fundamental tools: boxes to contain the void and chalk to expand and release it in open dynamic forms. To the latter belong the two exceptional sculptures we are dealing with, whose bidding represents a significant event in the art marker.

As a result of these experiments carried out in his chalk laboratory, Oteiza devised “Zazpiak” in 1970, whose casting under his personal supervision would not take place until 2001. Empty of matter, flooded with metaphysics, the work alludes in its forms and in its very title to the seven Basque territories that for the nationalists make up Esukal Herria and whose coats of arms are reproduced on the flag under a centuries-old slogan: Zazpiak bat (The seven, one). The piece reflects the tension between each of the parts and the whole, resulting in a piece of great rotundity where the space harmonizes with the rotundity of the bronze.

The chalk laboratory will also be where Oteiza takes up again the models entitled “Hau madrilentzat” (This for Madrid) linked to a failed public sculpture project for the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid and initially conceived, as stated in the text written by Oteiza himself “My last sculpture in praise of discontent” to be installed at the end of the promenade, on the Monpas (San Sebastian) overhang.

Few titles so clearly anticipate the intention implicit in the creation and character of the artist. Symbolizing the tensions between the center and the periphery of the Spanish State, the figure composed of different tetrahedrons that diverge from each other, resembles a cut of sleeves and, paraphrasing the sculptor, symbolizes what he feels as “Euskadi’s visual response to the centralism of the deaf-blind politicians in Madrid”.

The passage of time, that element that the artist fought to banish from his sculptures to anchor them in a full and eternal spatiality, is now the great ally of his memory, whose validity constitutes the best portrait of an author who embodied the idea that the purpose of art is not the work but the transforming and transcendent reality of the aesthetic experience.

Faced with the works of Manolo Valdés we cannot help but wonder what Velázquez, Matisse or Picasso would think when they saw their transfigured masterpieces. Be that as it may, what is absolutely certain is the resounding international success that the Valencian artist has achieved thanks to a particular revision of the history of art that makes us question the reality of the times and of artistic practice itself.

From his beginnings in the 1960s to the present, Valdés’ work has evolved with absolute coherence, exploring and conquering new artistic territories from a deep knowledge of the history of art and the deepest admiration for his great masters. However, far from contemplating them from afar, Valdés rescues and takes from them those aspects of his art that he considers more appropriate to carry out a an apotheosis exercise of reinterpretation and recontextualization of the very history of art with which, decade after decade, he has forged his unmistakable creative universe.

Far from falling into the monotony that could be produced by the reiteration of the same formula, Valdés reveals his immense ability to structure his work under the same common denominator, evolving and reinventing it in each of its facets. This reformulation is evident in the pair of works under bidding, whose distance is not only due to the 20 years of difference that separate them, but also to an aesthetic discourse that, despite starting from the same approach, differs radically from each other.

In fact, after finishing his time as a member of Equipo Crónica, Valdés began in the 80s a period of maturity and creative growth, which led him definitively towards that personal and genuine style to which he has remained faithful ever since.

In sculptures such as “Reina Mariana en art deco”, the three-dimensional experimentations that the artist carried out at the beginning of his solo career materialize through the iconographic theme of Velázquez’s Marian queens. Hidden under the angular volumetry of the sculpture, we guess a Queen Mariana whose Velazquez appearance has been versioned in the hands of Valdés under the primary, synthetic and geometric forms typical of art deco. However, the imperfections in the wood that it deliberately leaves exposed, take it away from the pretensions of the decorative arts to evoke a much purer and more authentic stage: that of our childhood and its playful spirit.

Along with Velázquez, Matisse was another of the great protagonists of the transfiguration and reinterpretation with which Valdés gave a second life to some of the most iconic works of our history. The fish tank that stars in our monumental work clearly alludes to the work of Henry Matisse and more specifically to “Red Fish”, of which the French master created up to twelve versions where he recreated the same iconographic motif. This starting point serves Valdés as a pretext to give light to a composition dominated by the material aspects, latent already from the choice of burlap as the support of the work. The roughness of the material, together with the prominence of the stain, the destabilization of the form and the corporeality of the pigments in very impastoed brushstrokes, make the piece an exercise that, bordering on three-dimensionality, refers us to informalist plastic art.

In both cases, the game of stylistic permutations and references to history give way to a new image that, in its complete originality and contemporaneity, manages to establish a dialogue between the art of the past and the present. In other words, it is Valdés responding to Velázquez and Matisse.

Far from limiting himself to evoking those works that are already icons of our history, Valdés takes a much more definitive and forceful step: he dissects and deconstructs them to create a new narrative that looks at, deciphers and reinvents the art of the past from a contemporary perspective. A perspective that, with the passage of time, will also become an enigma that future glances will decipher and update.

The tragicomic sense with which Celso Lagar represented the circus world reveals one of the most applauded aspects of his career.

The relevance acquired by the circus world between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was reflected in art through a wide range of artists. who, attracted by the bohemian and eccentric spirit of the circus, wanted to capture the essence of this wonderful and cathartic visual spectacle. At that time, and especially in Paris, the circus had become one of the great epicenters of social life, becoming, without a doubt, an inexhaustible source of inspiration and experimentation in the development of the artistic avant-garde.

In fin-de-siècle Paris, artists such as Tolousse-Lautrec, Chagall, Picasso or Leger, discovered the possibilities that this great spectacle offered them, opening the doors to a dream world, where fantasy, magic and the longing to recover the lost paradise of their childhood, meant refuge and hope in the face of daily misfortunes. In this way, the circus, which from its irreverence and optimism aroused the most primal and genuine emotions, was discovered as the perfect setting in which to unleash the new spirit of modernity and freedom championed by the artistic avant-gardes. This space, free of social conventions, was also the place where vibrant colors, fast-paced movement and compositional freedom found a place to come alive.

However, in contrast to this idealized image of the circus world, there were many artists who reflected the cruder and more sordid face that was hidden behind it. The circus became a metaphor for the human condition where tragedy and comedy became two sides of the same coin. From then on, the feeling of melancholy and nostalgia was identified with the marginal condition of those fascinating characters who, after the stage lights went out, lived a reality far removed from the splendor of the show. From this point of view, Picasso’s depictions are probably the most prescient example of the tragic meaning that enveloped the circus stars, whose picturesque, marginal and transgressive life was identified with that of the artist himself. In this sense, the figure of the clown embodies, like no other, the artist’s feeling of incomprehension and loneliness. But beyond Picasso, there were many Spanish artists such as Benjamín Palencia, Antoni Clavé, Maruja Mayo or Celso Lagar who made the circus theme one of the centers of their production.

In this sense, Celso Lagar embodies the figure of the cursed artist that accompanied many of the great artists of the first half of the last century and that even today is part of the image we have built around the myth of the genius. Immersed in the bohemian life of the city of Paris, where he would spend most of his life, Lagar found the breeding ground from which his plastic character would be born. In fact, the tragic character that dominated his existence finds in the circus theme the ideal scenario through which to build a metaphor of the human condition.

The importance that this theme acquired within the artist’s imaginary led him to be known as the painter of the circus thanks to works that, like the one we present today, constitute one of Lagar’s most celebrated and applauded creative stages. In it emerges a halo of melancholy and sadness that clearly reminds us of the most classicist Picasso both in its subject matter and in its plastic conception. The serious faces and the languor of his protagonists, together with the predominance of cold tones, give us an image where the deep feeling of loneliness and rootlessness that accompanied him since he left his native Andalusia, becomes a symbol of the society between the wars.

In short, the circus show was transformed by Celso Lagar into a reflection of the spectacle of life.

There are few places in our country that are more surrounded by attraction and mystery as the Palace of San Telmo and its dwellers, the Dukes of Montpensier. These two names have always gone hand in hand with endless gossip and rumors related to power, luxury and art.

With the fall of the monarchy of Louis Philippe in France, the youngest son of Anthony of Orleans, Duke of Montpensier, and his wife the Infanta Louise Fernanda de Bourbon moved to Spain. After a first attempt to reside in Madrid, the Elizabethan government offered to move the princely couple to Seville, so as not to cause problems. The Orleans couple accepted and found in the city of the Guadalquivir and on its banks, in the San Telmo palace, not only a home, but the opportunity to create their own court and a world of their own choosing. The splendor that surrounds San Telmo lingers in the memory of any Sevillian. The opulence of its facade, as well as the size of its dimensions show that this is not a typical Andalusian palace house. The palace was renovated with the clear interest of matching that of the monarchs themselves. We must not forget that both were sons of the kings of France and Spain (Louis Philippe and Ferdinand VII) and, therefore, the contents of the palace were the result of such high inheritances and the desire for collecting and patronage of the dukes.

San José con el Niño, as Murillo’s workshop bid in Setdart and old photograph of the same painting in 1872 (archive of the Museo Nacional del Prado) attributing it to Murillo and coming from the collection of the Dukes of Montpensier. Exhibited at the gallery of the Palacio de San Telmo.

Since the House of Montpensier settled in San Telmo, we observed how all Seville and Andalusia in general looked to them as a reference. So much so that Antony himself promoted the coup d’état against his sister-in-law, Isabella II, in the hope of running himself as successor. The duke went so far as to finance this enterprise with his collection and the palace. Years later, the family’s dream was ephemerally fulfilled when their daughter, Maria de las Mercedes, became Queen through her marriage to Alfonso XII.

This sequence of decades full of palace intrigues, parties, gatherings and, of course, art, was the work of the Orleans-Borbon family. Inside San Telmo were the great treasures of both houses. On the one hand, there would be the famous Murillos that had belonged to the French crown, such as the Virgin of the Girdle and the Saint Joseph and Child that we present here. Other masterpieces from the royal collection also came from France, such as the portrait of Don Francisco de Moncada, Marquis of Aytona, from the Chateau d’Eu. The funds of the House of Bourbon, on the Spanish side, would be minor as they represented the Spanish crown’s own patrimony because Maria Luisa’s inheritance was no more and no less than that of King Ferdinand VII. Such is the value of this inheritance that it was not delivered upon his return from France because the state could not assume such a sum. The final decision was the annual payment of a million-dollar amount that never reached the value of this one. Let’s think that the then young Prado Museum came from the royal House and that, therefore, its content was also part of the expected inheritance.

The three works presented at auction by Setdart are an outstanding example of the “small court” of San Telmo and the great period of prosperity, both economic and artistic, that Seville experienced thanks to the patronage of the Montpensier family.

The creative freedom that has characterized small-format production, allowing artists to deploy a level of technical precision and stylistic experimentation, has given birth to their most intimate and personal creations, whose evocative power manages to move the viewer. In the set of paintings on auction on May 8, there is an outstanding representation of Catalan landscape painting concentrated in a few centimeters of talent and creativity.

The value and significance that artists have attributed to the small format work shows us that the greatness of a work of art does not lie in its size but in its content and plastic qualities. In fact, it is in this format where we can often find the true essence of an artist’s style since these small works are born from the first idea or creative impulse and, therefore, concentrate all the strength, spontaneity and freshness that emanates from his brushes.

The entity that, thanks to painters such as Eliseo Meifrèn or Joaquim Mir, reached the Catalan landscape painting at the dawn of the nineteenth century, especially translucid in this set of small format works whose modernity and daring conquered registers unpublished until then. It was precisely through small format painting where all of them reflected more sincerely and freely the authentic emotionality of the Catalan landscape. His artistic legacy, intimately linked to the land and the sea, has reached our days as the purest and most personal expression of the unbreakable bond that unites the essence of the Mediterranean character with nature.

These small cardboards and tablets in bidding have become, in their own right, great little jewels that give us the opportunity to approach the most daring and experimental production of their authors. In this way, the scenarios that make up the Catalan geography, are transformed through this format into experiments in light and color, giving way to small frames of everyday life that, like a vivid instant, allow us to almost feel and smell the atmosphere of our beloved Mediterranean.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, when Catalan landscape painting developed as a fully autonomous genre, a stage began that would be recognized as a truly vital golden age in the renewal of a subject that until then had been relegated to the background. as a mere accompaniment to the great mythological and biblical themes. Experimenting with the new artistic trends that emerged throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, landscape painting developed under a continuous evolution, whose progressive break with academic conventions led it towards the creative freedom of the so-called Modernity.

The French influence together with the demand of the new Catalan bourgeoisie, who found in art collecting a sign of prestige to reaffirm their new social status, led to the emergence of realism in Catalonia with a boom in landscape themes. The strict observation of reality and his naturalistic expression of the surrounding world was imported by Martí Alsina as a result of his trips to Paris, a city that gave him the opportunity to learn first-hand about the work of Courbet and the landscape artists of the Barbizon School.

After this first approach to European trends, we will see how, from the 1970s onwards, a more spiritual conception of landscape will emerge, which will be consolidated with the arrival of symbolism. This trend found in the work of Modest Urgell its main precursor, introducing in his landscapes an emotional and melancholic look that, rather than representing the reality of nature, intended to evoke the poetry underlying it. Imbued with a characteristic crepuscular light, his works are close to the romantic thought of the sublime, where nature, as a symbol of the values that move the world, acquires a certain divine character.

In the last decade of the 19th century, the influence of the French impressionists gradually entered the scene thanks to artists such as Eliseu Meifrèn and Segundo Matilla, who made the natural landscape their best studio. Renouncing the initial realist tendency to get rid of the mimetic description of the natural model, Meifrèn will surrender to the impressionist audacities to capture in his work an impression of nature based on the purely chromatic and luminous treatment of the landscape.

Meifrèn’s workmanship and luminous conception can be appreciated in Matilla’s compositions and his way of conceiving space and volumes by means of a loose, impastoed and precise brushstroke. With them, the forms are blurred and become pure expressive stain, where the light, worked and thought, acquires a renewed protagonism and nature a new atmospheric dimension that goes beyond the objective reality.

In the twentieth century, landscape painting reached new expressive quotas that we cannot conceive without Joaquim Mir as a key figure of Catalan pictorial postmodernism. His landscapes, sublimated and far from any objectivity, give the painting a high sensory charge that the viewer receives as a truly vivid experience. Under an overwhelming mastery of lighting effects and color, applied with vibrant brushstrokes and superimposed stains, Mir builds a reality that, reduced to its basic elements, reveals a landscape with its own soul and pulse.

The introduction of the Nazarene movement in Catalonia found in Claudio Lorenzale one of its great representatives.

The historical and social upheavals of the early 19th century led to the emergence of artistic movements which, like the Nazarenes of German Romanticism, invoked the glories of past times to restore the lost national spirit. Heirs to the wave of sentimentalism, medievalism and sanctimonious religiosity that was invading Germany at the time, the Nazarenes, led by Friedrich Overbeck and Peter von Cornelius, sought to recover the spirituality and honesty of an art that manifested itself as the purest and truest expression of the Christian faith.

In this way, the neoclassical ideal of perfection, which had been dismissed as superficial, gave way to a supremacy of spiritual content inspired by the models of medieval art and the painting of the masters of the Quatroccento and early Raphael, whose style they considered closer to authentic German nature. In 1908 and with the aim of directly studying the sources of art and Christian culture, the main nucleus of the Nazarenes was established in Rome under the name of the Community of St. Luke, patron saint of painters. Despite being ridiculed at first by Hegel and Goethe, the ideology of Overbeck and company eventually took hold in the Roman environment until it spread throughout Europe thanks to the important public commissions they were assigned (the cycle of frescoes at Casa Bartholdy and the cycle of frescoes at Casa Massimo) and the influence they exerted on other artists who, like Claudio Lorenzale, were at that time boarding in Rome.

The theory and aesthetics of the Nazarenes spread and radiated through direct contact with these young painters who found in Nazarenism the origin of the recovery of the Catalan historical past. In fact, the similarities between the emerging Catalan Renaixença and Nazarene thought led to the integration of an important group of Catalan artists, such as Pelegrín Clavé, Francisco Cerdà, Manuel Vilar, Joaquim Espalter and Pau Milà i Fontanals, as well as Lorenzale himself, who formed the Nazarene Romantic movement in Catalonia.

An example of this is Claudio Lorenzale’s canvas in tender, whose aesthetics and intentionality follow the purist artistic ideology of his master, Friedrich Overbeck.

The piece, inspired by a past that is represented in a bucolic way, introduces us to a scene where the presence of a group of highborn young people, who are enjoying the arts, brings us closer to the Italian aesthetics of the early Renaissance, evoking, to a large extent, the story of The Decameron by Boccaccio in which he narrates the stay of a group of young people in a villa on the outskirts of Florence, where fleeing from the black plague that struck the city, they will live their days devoted exclusively to the arts and leisure. Lorenzale turns here to one of the greatest works of European literature to relive the splendorous past of the humanist ideals initiated by Petrarch in the 14th century.

The purist aesthetic ideals of medieval inspiration are reflected in a scholastic and eclectic composition based on the preponderance of the drawing that determines the forms with a hardness in the outline. Likewise, and as our work illustrates, depth and volume were not part of his plastic concerns, and we can observe in it a minimal use of chiaroscuro, which despite the perspective of the scene, shows us a clear inclination towards flat colors. This uniform luminosity expresses the timelessness that they intended to give to their work as a manifestation of the triumph of the sacred over time.

As one of the most outstanding artists of the Nazarene trend, Lorenzale developed an important teaching activity that led him to found his own academy in defense of the recovery of models prior to Raphael. As the great master he was, the prestige and recognition he achieved influenced much of the Barcelona painting of the time.

The fascination with gold has been present in all ages and cultures throughout history. For six millennia, gold has been considered one of the most precious and valuable materials. Its scarcity, its difficult oxidation and, of course, its characteristic luster and color make it the perfect coin of exchange, a must in jewelry and watchmaking, as well as being considered the highest element in sculpture. Its physical properties were understood as a reflection of the mystical character that surrounds it. The ancient Egyptians represented their gods made of this material and the Greeks and Romans applied the same canon in their great sculptures, such as the monumental Athena of the Parthenon.

The scarcity of gold is one of the most important elements in generating this attraction. From its earliest applications we can see how gold has been manipulated to get the most out of it, using the least amount of material. Different alloys and uses such as the gold leaf technique, gilded bronze or “ormulu” or “vermeil” have allowed its use and its applications, one of the most widespread in the world of decorative arts.

The trousseau of the pharaohs was full of beds, chairs and carts covered with gold sheets that simulated being made entirely of this material, with a significantly lower cost. This ancestral use has been extended to the present day.

In the Baroque period, following the precepts of the Council of Trent, the places of worship were transformed to adapt them to the theatrical spectacle that would help to bring the faith closer to the people. These churches would be modified with less noble materials that were later dignified with gold gilding.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the technique of gilded bronze was perfected. This technique involved subjecting the bronze sculptures to extremely high temperatures, which were then covered with gold and, once cold, the support was meticulously burnished with agate until it reached the color and shine of a jewel. This quality would reach its peak thanks to the dangerous technique of mercury gilding. French craftsmen called it “ormulu” and the finish achieved would not be surpassed in the future, not even with the technological improvements of the Industrial Revolution.

The artisanal processes that took place between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century resulted in high quality pieces. The tops of the furniture were worked with the same care and attention as a sculpture or a piece of goldsmith’s work. The involvement of different masters in each discipline required a very specific and careful work, just to make a console, for example, would require a designer probably trained as an architect, a sculptor for the work of wood carving and applications, bronze casters and gilders, with the mercury technique, as well as cabinetmakers, varnishers and marble workers. All this team of people to carry out a work of art turned into a piece of furniture.

What was one of the last figurative paintings by Josep Guinovart stars in our next contemporary art auction, becoming one of the rare occasions in which his earliest creative period bursts into the market with an important work.

Josep Guinovart’s artistic legacy has transcended time as one of the great references of the Catalan avant-garde of the second half of the 20th century. His intense career bears the mark of the nonconformist spirit that characterized a whole generation of artists marked by a conflictive historical context that, as a catalyst, opened the way to new artistic horizons. With the end of World War II and guided by the absolute freedom of his creative impulse, Guinovart reflected in art the need and commitment to build a new world on the ashes of the previous one.

The richness and unclassifiable nature of his creation transpires throughout a trajectory that, despite entering fully into abstraction, was forged under radically different beginnings rooted in the figurative expressionist tradition. In this sense, the monumental work in tender is undoubtedly a paradigmatic example of this creative stage.

After the 40’s marked by a work of magicist character and great lyricism, Guinovart enters in the 50’s in a particular figurative expressionism in which, through a plastic schematism of clear socio-political intention, he will base the deep commitment to reality that will mark his work. In this sense, rural and peasant life will acquire a great prominence, deeply linked to the childhood memories and rural life he experienced in Agramunt, until remaining since then and forever in the most intimate and personal creative imagination of the artist.

In this new “peasant” phase we see how Guinovart deploys a painting of great restraint and a certain solemnity in which, through the solidity of the forms and the hieratism of the faces, the artist dignifies the figure of the peasant, charging the work with a political content in which social awareness and commitment will be an indivisible part of his career. However, the bluish tones that bathe this rural night scene together with the presence of the owl, which will reappear in his later works, imbue the work with a certain symbolic character that is extremely magical and evocative.

Hand in hand with Guinovart, art and life flow indivisibly, feeding each other back to show us the most genuine and sincere vision of the world that surrounded him. As his great friend and teacher Joan Miro said, “strength comes from the earth” and it was there where Guinovart found the original source of an overflowing creative torrent, decisive in the evolution of the avant-garde in our country. His work has transcended time as a true ode to life, whose depth and sensitivity can only be reached by those who, like him, lived and painted under the dictates of the strong commitment they acquired with their time, but also with their own convictions and origin.

The most classical aspect of the sculpture produced between the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century finds a valuable and exclusive representation in our next auction on April 12.

In the time frame that spans from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the first third of the twentieth century, sculptural practice experienced a period of eclecticism that from neoclassicism to the avant-garde, through realism, developed in a continuous tension between the rootedness to tradition and the need to break with the past. However, despite the emergence of the all-powerful avant-garde, the sculpture more rooted in the traditional canons survived thanks to the reinvention and reinterpretation of classical trends that until then had been dominated by the excessive rigidity of the academies.

These two centuries, from an artistic point of view, will be linked to the profound economic, social and political changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the liberal revolutions. In any case, the dynamism of the styles that followed one another at a pace unknown until then will eventually become an essential feature of the art of our time by translating millimetrically the transformations that took place in the social and economic reality.

The sculptural ensemble in bidding reflects in a clear-cut way the idiosyncrasy of the sculptural practice of the time, and how these changes were materialized through the representation of the human figure. Each and every one of the new creative horizons with which they experimented took shape, especially through the beauty of the nude, dance and movement, but also in the multiple allegorical and mythological figures that, following the models of classical antiquity, proliferated at that time.
Although neoclassicism sought to break definitively with Rococo based on simplicity, objectivity, interest in history and rationality, having as artistic models the classical canons, as the century progressed, the strict rationality of neoclassical sculpture gave way to a greater expressiveness that, with the arrival of the romantic style, would prioritize subjectivity, emotions, individuality and personal experience.

From the middle of the century, we can find other very different styles that, like Realism, will oppose the correct classicist style and the special romantic sentimentalism, promoting an objective art that will capture the reality of the present. In this sense, the changes that took place with the Industrial Revolution and its social and political reforms were exposed in this new artistic conception that, directing the focus towards the social theme, placed the worker as the protagonist.
This succession and evolution of styles is reflected in the trajectory of artists such as the French Jean Baptiste Carpeaux or the Belgian Constantin Meunier, who clearly sink their roots in academicism to later drift towards freer interpretations. This evolution will be especially noticeable in the case of the Belgian who will eventually become one of the great representatives of sculpture and realist painting that, in the second half of the nineteenth century, wanted to represent the harshness of labor exploitation of workers.

This succession and evolution of styles is reflected in the trajectory of artists such as the French Jean Baptiste Carpeaux or the Belgian Constantin Meunier, who clearly sink their roots in academicism to later drift towards freer interpretations. This evolution will be especially noticeable in the case of the Belgian who will eventually become one of the great representatives of sculpture and realist painting that, in the second half of the nineteenth century, wanted to represent the harshness of labor exploitation of workers.

However, the renewal of sculpture and the consequent break with the prevailing academic canon came, as is unanimously considered, from the hand of Rodin, whose conception of art inaugurated a new stage in the field of sculpture that, leaving behind a decadent academicism, gave birth to a new sculptural ideal capable of dialoguing with the most avant-garde artistic proposals of the twentieth century. With a neoclassical background, Rodin imbibed from artists such as Donatello and Michelangelo, whom he reinterpreted with an experimental and audacious spirit, in which from spontaneity to heroic pathos, he embraced an infinite range of plastic possibilities to be exploited. The gradual dissolution of forms, the play of light and shadow and the expressionism of his works undoubtedly marked the path towards modern sculpture.

Within this period between centuries we cannot fail to refer to the particularities that defined the sculpture of movements such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

As happened in the rest of the artistic disciplines, Art Nouveau was identified by an absolute protagonism of the undulating and sinuous line, as well as by a clear tendency towards asymmetry and a taste for exotic elements, eclecticism and sensuality. An example of this is the work of one of the most outstanding exponents of the period known as the Belle Époque, Émile Antoine Bourdelle, whose work still contains certain romantic traits that attenuated Rodinian expressionism.

The excesses of modernism gave way to the geometric stylization of Art Deco and the return to a new classicism characterized by refinement, elegance and sensuality. Thus, the forms of Art Deco will be idealized, balanced and proportioned, but at the same time synthetic and essential, moving away, unlike Art Nouveau, from the direct inspiration in nature of the late nineteenth century.

In short, the sculptural ensemble presented by Setdart at the auction on April 12 is evidence of the survival of the most traditional side of the art in the face of avant-garde trends, whose coexistence represented one of the periods with great experimentation and artistic effervescence.

In bronzes such as “Guitare portuguese”, Arman captured the result of his research into the decomposition and fragmentation of the object by means of cuts from which a new perspective of reality emerges.

The prominent role of Arman’s work in the latest artistic avant-gardes is undeniable thanks to his contributions regarding the reformulation of the link between the object and its artistic representation, which is still today a matter of debate and a vital aspect in plastic experimentation.

The fifties and sixties of the last century were as fruitful and eclectic artistically speaking as were its first decades thanks, in part, to the inexhaustible spirit of reinvention of many artists who, like our protagonist, wanted to overcome and reinterpret the concepts established by movements such as Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism or Futurism.

In this sense, the work of Armand Pierre Fernandez is the living reflection of the need to find a new form of artistic expression that would stand as a symbol of the malaise generated by industrial expansion and consumer society. In fact, it was in the sixties when, with the experimentations carried out by artists such as Klein, Christo and Arman himself, the prestigious art critic Pierre Restany had a clairvoyant intuition of the new perception of reality that was emerging in art. As a result, in 1960 Restany wrote the First Manifesto of New Realism, which defined a renaissance of artistic language that, in opposition to informal art, was proclaimed as the French equivalent of pop art. Together with his colleagues, Arman materialized the will to build new approaches to reality through a representation of the world that directly and literally incorporated the objects that inhabited it. In this aspect, the Dadaist ready-mades were the direct referent of the new realists who, like their predecessors, elevated the everyday object to the category of work of art.

In Arman’s case, the choice of objects that will give light to his work will have a clear intentionality that seeks to critically reflect the reality of the consumerist society. However, together with industrial or waste materials, it will also be common to find other types of elements that, like musical instruments, reveal the true poetics of the object. In fact, thanks to the love for music that his parents instilled in him since childhood, musical instruments and especially stringed instruments, will be a fundamental tool in the evolution of the different SERIES that according to the procedure, material and concept used, he classified in Accumulations, “Poubelle” Encapsulations, “Poubelle” Encapsulations, “Poubelle” Encapsulations and “Poubelle” Encapsulations., “Coupes” and “Colères”.

An example of this is the sculpture “Guitarre portuguese”, where the representation of the musical instrument is based on the concept he developed in his “cortes” series. Through a process of destruction of the object under which he structured his work, Arman gives way to a recomposition of the resulting fragments, from which emerges a new perspective of reality that, as in this case, he will transfer to bronze. Disarticulating the parts by means of frontal and transversal cuts, the French artist introduces the concept of emptiness as a sculptural material that, in opposition to the solid and closed character traditionally associated with this practice, marked the evolution of modern sculpture.

The will of destruction intrinsic to his work responds to the need to show the object after submitting it to a dynamic action where, either by means of cuts, combustions or explosions, the fragmented is revealed to us as a unitary whole that preserves its identity or original significance. Therefore, and unlike Dadaist and Surrealist procedures, Arman’s objects will maintain, despite their mutilation, an absolute sense of the real in accordance with the postulates of the new realism.

As in some of Arman’s most emblematic works, our bronze explicitly and intentionally shows the substratum of the cubist and futurist imprint, trying to express the same spirit of formal renovation that defined its predecessors. On the one hand, the fragmented and recomposed vision of the object, as well as the recurrent use of stringed instruments, refer us to the conception of reality proposed by the cubists, while the dynamic composition with which it suggests movement leads us to the idea of temporality typical of futurism. This is expressed as it happens in our work, both in the deconstruction of the object and in the way of situating each of the fragments in different spatial planes.

To understand the true meaning of these actions it is necessary to put the work in context, whose background contains a sociological reading where the appearance of objects is the result of the accelerated pace imposed by a consumer society capable of producing as quickly as it discards and destroys. In short, Arman’s cuts, burns, accumulations and destructions are manifested in his work as a testimony of the shortcomings and shamelessness of the culture of his time.

“Valencia Beach, illustrates Joaquín Sorolla’s mastery in sketching, concentrating in a reduced space the purest and most vivid vibration of light and color of the Valencian beaches.

The technical virtuosity that Joaquín Sorolla achieved with his pictorial work consecrated him as the painter of light par excellence. However, the scope of his artistic corpus goes far beyond his well-known canvases in which he captured like few others the light effects of the Mediterranean.

Throughout his life, the Valencian artist painted about 2000 oil paintings on small boards and tablets (almost half of the total works attributed to the artist) that, like the one we present here, have become in their own right great jewels in the production of the Valencian master.. The works on cardboard or reused boards to which the painter gave a second life give us the opportunity to approach the most daring and experimental Sorolla, concentrating in just 20 centimeters all the genius and mastery that the painter exhibited in his large format works.

At the beginning, these paintings remained in the most absolute intimacy of the artist, who covered the walls of his studio with these small works that he considered the most intimate and personal. However, the succession of captured fleeting instants that made up each of these scenes made him understand the individual value they contained, and he decided to show them to the public for the first time on his American tour in 1909. The reception by the public, who showed the same enthusiasm that awakened the large format works, only confirmed the value of these creations in which Sorolla shows his purest side.

Conceived as natural studies where he concentrated all the artistic ideas that boiled in his head, Sorolla captured in each and every one of the motifs with which he achieved an international prestige within the reach of only the greatest.

Thus, his famous beach scenes, whether in Valencia, Biarritz or San Sebastián, became the most famous in the world. transformed through this format into experiments of light and color executed with a quick, pulsating and spontaneous brushstroke, until giving way to small frames of everyday life that, like a vivid instant, allow us to almost feel and smell the atmosphere of his adored Mediterranean.

The vital importance of this aspect of Sorolla’s production to understand the trajectory, evolution and dimension that his work acquired is absolutely reaffirmed by the multiple exhibitions, such as those held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao or at the Fundación Bancaja, which have been dedicated monographically to this format thanks to which we are introduced to the most essential Sorolla, synthetic and daring, always ready to face new visual challenges.

Awarded in Setdart for 130.000€.

Awarded in Setdart for 100.000€.

There is no doubt that the resounding success of the most international Valencian artist of all times will be forever linked to his particular vision of life on the beaches of the Mediterranean, where Sorolla was able to free himself from academicist constraints to give free rein to his freest and most revolutionary creative character.

Setdart wanted to collaborate once again with the organization of the charity auction of the iconic Meninas, whose image invades the streets of Madrid every year as a public museum, becoming a symbol and icon of the city.

Twenty-one of the Meninas that we were able to enjoy in the streets of Madrid are now available on Setdart’s website, where you can bid for them until March 27, when the bidding will end. The initiative, which this year celebrates its sixth edition, has two objectives: to bring art to ordinary people with the exhibition of sculptures for several months in various public spaces in Madrid and a solidarity objective, whose benefits will be delivered, in most cases, to those affected by the earthquake in Turkey, thanks to the collaboration of the Save the Children Foundation.

Las Meninas, ladies-in-waiting of the Infanta Margarita in Velázquez’s famous painting, are reinvented once again in the hands of the talent of artists, prestigious professionals and celebrities that join this project where creativity reigns under the slogan of this edition, which according to Azzato, could be defined as “a tribute to diversity” and “to a city (Madrid) that welcomes everyone”. Based on the question “What is Madrid for you?”, the creators of these exclusive pieces have put their ideas into practice, creating each sculpture with an individual message.

From Setdart we firmly believe in the need to support and contribute to this kind of initiatives, demonstrating once again the unbreakable link between art and life. That is why we encourage you to participate in this solidarity bidding in which, more than ever, your bids will be a great triumph.

The museum quality of “Danza de odaliscas” reveals the best version of Francisco Pradilla’s orientalist production.

The European colonial expansion in North Africa during the 19th century was decisive in the desire of many artists to travel and explore an unknown world. The representation of its landscapes, customs and conflicts gave rise to the so-called orientalist painting, a genre with its own personality within nineteenth-century art that was passionately cultivated by the great masters of the time.

The irruption of orientalism as a fully recognized genre finds its origin during Romanticism which, like medieval historicism, meant an escape from reality endowed with a certain mythification. Artists, attracted by the exotic and distant, represented the oriental world through a prism dominated by fantasy and evocative character. which characterized the many stories about the lands of Mediterranean Africa and the Near East that, like those of Francis Burton, Gustav Flaubert or Gerard de Nerval, among others, proliferated in literature. In fact, following the Napoleonic campaigns, the Western imaginary was nourished by the glories of these old empires whose conquest was represented in multiple scenes symbolizing the power and superiority of the West over the East.

One of the most powerful images that penetrated bourgeois taste and, therefore, the art market was undoubtedly that of the odalisque. Artists such as Ingres or Delacroix dedicated part of their production to these sensual slaves of the Turkish harem who, given to the lowest passions, became in one of the great myths that the history of art has created. Proof of this are the images that immediately come to mind when we think of their figure, imagining them as exuberant women dancing sensually or lying on the couch of the harem. Whether nude or adorned with exotic clothing and jewelry, the figure of the of the odalisque symbolized the dreamed, mythologized and therefore misunderstood image of the oriental world and in particular of women, thus contributing to the creation of archetypes that have survived to the present day, such as that of the femme fatale.. The iconographic model established in nineteenth-century French painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix is, therefore, the result of an exoticized and eroticized vision where the female body represents the desire of the West to escape from its reality to immerse itself fully in the oriental reverie that they wanted to recreate.

At the national levelWhile it is true that all the clichés and mythologies that had shaped European romantic culture were incorporated, there was a desire to project a less fanciful vision of Moorish culture. Mariano Fortuny began the path that later generations, such as our protagonist Francisco Pradilla, took as a reference. In fact, Pradilla’s orientalist vision will be marked both by his trips to North Africa and by the years he spent in the region. could share with Mariano Fortuny during his stay in Rome, being in the last year of his pension in the Italian capital when he made the monumental work in bidding “Dance of Odalisques”.. In it, Pradilla takes as a model one of the most recurrent scenes of this typology, showing a group of odalisques dancing half-naked to the beat of a musical instrument, giving light to an apotheosic exercise of technical mastery both at a chromatic and draftsmanship level.

As we can see in it, the painting of this period will be dominated by the realistic tone that emerges both in the expressive intensity of the characters, as well as in the execution of the details and the successful light treatment. In this aspect, the Aragonese painter is heir to the preciosity and dramatic effects of chiaroscuro practiced by his French predecessors, but also, and very notably, to the imprint that Mariano Fortuny left on the entire generation that immediately followed him, and he was even considered the most important supporter of the young Pradilla’s time.

The warm light that enters the scene from the right side to illuminate the women in the foreground, contrasts with the darkness of a background from which a male figure emerges to observe them as they surrender to the sensuality of the dance. This play of light, together with the swaying movements of the female bodies and the exchange of glances between them, endow the composition with a very sharp rhythmic sense full of dynamism. It should also be noted that, unlike other representations starring odalisques, Pradilla here frees them from the harem. The scene is then transferred to a nocturnal exterior in what appears to be a natural setting, which only accentuates the mysterious character of this type of scene.

In fact, As specialists in his work maintain, “Odalisque Dance” is related to other orientalist paintings made in the same year which, like the “Odalisque” acquired by the Goya Museum in 2021, show us one of the women who are the protagonists of our painting. dressed in typical Moorish garb and immersed with a pair of musical instruments in a similar nocturnal environment. This fact has given rise to a more than reasonable hypothesis according to which the artist was then considering the possibility of presenting an orientalist theme of this kind to the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1887, which he finally discarded in favor of a historicist theme.

Be that as it may, there is an unappealable certainty of the portentous talent that Pradilla showed since his beginnings and that now, thanks to the tender of “Danza de Odaliscas”, we can enjoy in all its splendor, reliving the orientalist dream that the artist imagined.

Jean Prouvé, who earned an irreplaceable place in modern design for having devised avant-garde solutions for disadvantaged groups in the impoverished post-war context, has paradoxically become one of the most sought-after names in the world of design.

In the figure of Jean Prouvé, avant-garde and commitment went hand in hand. The French architect and designer succeeded in making social utopia a reality, at least within his margins of action, when after World War II the bombed cities needed rapid reconstruction.

Prouvé devised cutting-edge solutions to shelter the large number of homeless people in post-war Paris. His militancy in favor of social integration yielded results on different fronts: prefabricated houses with a revolutionary concept, furniture for collectives, synergies between craftsmen and architects…

He collaborated with the stellar figures of the modern movement, such as Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, but at the same time never renounced his training as a blacksmith and forger.

With a holistic and integrating vision, he knew how to combine all these branches of construction and decoration, always taking into account the container when filling it with content. He defined himself as an “industrialist” rather than a designer or architect, because for him the research of materials, teamwork, the importance of economizing spaces and giving lightness to his designs were all part of the same sphere of creation.

On March 9, Setdart will hold one of its longest-running auctions in terms of the dating of the pieces. Its wide range includes a careful selection of weapons dating from the Lower Paleolithic (whose beginning dates back to 300,000 BC) to the Neolithic and the Age of Metals, as well as Egyptian idols from the Nagada II period.

Setdart’s prehistoric itinerary takes as its starting point a selection of 80 weapons that take us back to the beginning of time and remind us of the importance of the lithic industry in the development of human beings, allowing Prehistoric Man to adapt to the environment and form sedentary communities. Axes, battle axes, knives and daggers of different materials and origins are distinguished by their excellent state of preservation and their extraordinary quality, taking into account the years that these tools carry behind their backs.

As an epilogue to such a captivating bidding, Setdart is auctioning a compilation of Egyptian idols from the Nagada II period (3300-2900 BC). Their fascinating provenance (they were originally part of the private collection of Egyptologist Robert Rustafjaell (1859-1943) and were later acquired by The Heckscher Museum of Art in New York, and were even exhibited in its galleries) demonstrates once again how archaeological collecting never goes out of fashion, captivating new and experienced collectors alike.

Number 18 Fontanella Street, a discreet street in Barcelona’s Eixample, was home to a small frame and gilding workshop in the early twentieth century that over the decades would become an unavoidable enclave for any lover of furniture and decoration.

Pere Cosp was barely twenty years old when, taking the reins of the family workshop, he began to be sought after by personalities of the high bourgeoisie who wanted to redecorate their homes. By then, he was already redirecting the company towards interior design and integral decoration. The restless young man, who had grown up among marble carvings and baroque mirrors, among moldings and gilding, had learned his trade well. But that was not enough for the artist’s soul that was beginning to awaken in him.

In the auction dedicated to him, Setdart gathers important samples of his most avant-garde period, pieces of great artistic value such as the pair of lamps with wrought iron feet, from a house in Llavaneras (Barcelona) with an interior designed entirely by Cosp in 1948-1949, referenced in the web page dedicated to the author, which lists the most important interior designs he made for individuals and companies. The play of the black balls housed in the shaft and the cantilevered sphere, in combination with elliptical lampshades, practically anticipates pop and the designs that in the sixties would be inspired by the galactic era.

Not to be outdone is the ceiling lamp in golden metal, endowed with clusters of palmettes in an apparently random arrangement, creating an eclectic structure whose starry openwork provides attractive patterns of light.

For this same house, the auction that Setdart dedicates to the designer includes a buffet-bookshop worked in every detail. Its recessed shape, the combination of ember and raffia, and the flamboyant keyholes show the great attention that Cosp paid to each element to create an unprecedented design. This buffet matches a sideboard with burlap fronts and starfish-shaped metal keyholes.

Let’s not leave this summer house on the coast of Barcelona, a symbol of the bourgeois pleasure of the time. The custom-made mahogany corner closet, the design of which bears the unmistakable Cosp stamp, was destined for one of his bedrooms. The pleats of the curved surface unify the doors in the manner of an accordion, in which four bas-reliefs reproduce cave paintings from different enclaves in Spain.

The diaphanous bedroom also had a double bed with an original concept. The ribbed waistband, in walnut, combines with a skay upholstered headboard, flanked by appliqués attached to metal curls.

Cosp was unique in his designs, freely engendered by his imagination and deep knowledge of the craft. Let us also mention the coffee table of aerodynamic profile, originally located in the living room, formed by walnut slats that confer an attractive play of full and empty spaces and that match with some benches that surrounded the room that was transformed, in many moments of celebration, into a flamenco tablao.

In the large living room of this same house, the spacious sofa in whose design Cosp played with an ingenious combination of materials and textures in the upholstery, based on colored fabrics and snakeskin simile.

Another example of how Cosp explored unusual possibilities of materials and extracted hidden potentials from each one is offered by the diversity of wall sconces or lamps. This is the case of the three sconces with the wood worked to emulate bamboo, as well as the unique sconces in the shape of hands carved in wood peeking out of a wide sleeve. Or, the pair of sconces designed in the shape of plant branches in painted metal and parchment shades.

From another house whose interior was also entirely designed by Cosp, an apartment in Freixa street in Barcelona, there is a coffee table whose top has a fine marquetry work based on intertwined quadrilobules. On its iron legs, it reinvents the classic stipe.

As we can see, the assortment of this collection is wide and succulent. They are all pieces that often flirt with classic elements but that the designer brings back to his territory and achieves an unparalleled modern packaging.

Most of the Cosp furniture that Setdart offers for sale dates from the late forties and early fifties, a period in which its prestige is established and will not cease to break new ground in the following decades. Pere Cosp is represented at the Barcelona Design Museum.

The name of the city of Florence directly evokes the cradle of the Renaissance, the cultural splendor under the rule of the Medici family. The names of Donatello, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Boticelli, just to mention a few, are equal to the fame of the city of the Arno. We have settled in the collective imagination the Florence of the quattrocento and cinquecento, but what was it like during the Baroque period?

The Medici family continued to prosper generation after generation until it embraced power beyond the borders of Florence. Around the 14th century, a few petty bourgeois became the bankers of half of Europe and governed an important part of the Italian peninsula. In the middle of the fifteenth century, Cosimo I received from the pope the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany. From then on the dynasty will be equated with the ancient monarchies of Europe.

A good ruler, as Machiavelli would say, must keep in mind the maxim “few see what we are, but all see what we appear to be”. There is no better instrument to demonstrate in politics than propaganda through Art. The appearance of Florence would be very different from what we would find in other European cities still close to the Middle Ages. The facades full of marble in the classical style, the bronze doors of Giberthi or the great dome of Santa Maria dei Fiori would leave foreign visitors speechless. The great achievement of his administration was to invest the profits from banks and manufacturing in the development and wealth of the city. Many artists and scientists found, in Florence and in his lord, the best possible patron.

Cosimo II, grandson of the first duke, took under his protection a number of scholars and artists, including Galileo Galei, who was his childhood teacher. Galileo himself would offer as a token of gratitude to the Duke, the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter naming them Medicean stars. Cosimo’s passion for humanism is reflected in his wide-ranging knowledge and interests, from mathematics to geography, cosmology and classical culture. He was fluent in several languages, apart from Italian: Spanish, German and French, which was key to his diplomatic relations with such important figures as Philip III and Louis XIII.

Like his predecessors, he understood that to demonstrate his position he would have to offer an image worthy of a sovereign, despite being only nineteen years old when he ascended the throne. The vision offered by his portraits are those of a man of arms and healthy appearance, something that was far from reality. He has himself painted wearing decorations, dressed in luxurious armor and the distinctive crown of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Portraits such as the one presented at auction by Setdart are an incomparable historical testimony of the role of art in the field of diplomacy and politics. These works were offered as gifts to other like-minded monarchs to strengthen relations and consolidate alliances, as could be the case of the Habsburgs in Austria or Spain.

The main artists he would count on for these commissions would be his protégés at court, Tiberio Titti, Cristofano Allori and Justus Sutermans. The case of the work in tender, as Dr. Vanugli points out, is attributable to the first two because of the similarities with other portraits currently in the Prado Museum or in the Palazzo Pitti, and the features of the sitter could be dated between 1610 and 1615.

Another example of art as a tool for diplomacy is the bronze tondo in which the profile of Cosimo is presented with his titles in Latin in the manner of the ancient Roman emperors. Guillaume Dupré, a French sculptor, traveled to Florence at that time to create several medals commemorating the Medici, his wife Maria Magdalena of Habsburg and their son and crown prince, Ferdinando.

Whether through books on scientific advances financed by the crown or through the protection of Italian and foreign artists, Cosimo II offered the world the vision of a cultured monarch ahead of his time.

It is unlikely that they knew each other, but a little digging into the contributions of the Catalan Pere Cosp and the Frenchman Jean Prouvé in the field of modern design brings to light suggestive correspondences.

In both artists, an initially artisanal training served as a springboard to develop innovative research in techniques and concepts. Jean Prouvé, the son of a cabinetmaker who belonged to the Art Nouveau movement, went through artistic blacksmith workshops in Nancy before settling in Paris, where he would become a key figure in modern design. Pere Cosp, for his part, was born into a Barcelona family of restorers and gilders, so from an early age he came into contact with all trades related to furniture and decoration.

Both would coincide in giving priority to teamwork, involving a whole range of professionals. Likewise, both would devote personalized attention to the spaces where their design pieces were to be destined, when they became referents in their respective fields of creation, receiving important public and private commissions.

Both the French and the Spanish brought a multifaceted personality to their creations, the result of their intellectual concerns and their ability to establish synergies with other trades.

Cosp’s great merit is that he blazed a new trail in an environment attached to classicist tastes. He contributed to renewing trends, introducing in the forties and fifties designs that would not be overshadowed by the great European firms of the modern movement. He was an avant-garde avant la lettre, with nothing to envy to the contemporary effervescence in the design capitals.

Pere Cosp

Jean Prouvé

Prouvé, on the other hand, rubbed shoulders with stellar figures such as Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, but his first steps in forge and carpentry workshops would leave a mark on his way of understanding design. Prouvé turned post-war scarcity into a stimulus for creative ingenuity: prefabricated houses with a revolutionary concept, furniture for collectives (the legendary Standard chair and EM table are his work), synergies between craftsmen and architects?

Cosp also knew how to respond to the demands of his time, gaining the confidence of the Catalan high bourgeoisie, whose houses he redecorated by introducing a flamboyant revolutionary air through the design of lamps, tables, shelves and complete bedrooms.

Setdart’s March 8 auction gives us the opportunity to make a comparative study between key pieces of both figures. Let’s take two lamps that are currently out to tender, two landmark lamps in the history of design, and “intertwine their bulbs”. This will result in a stimulating play of light. We refer to the pair of lamps with wrought iron feet by Pere Cosp, from a summer house located in Sant Andreu de Llavaneras with an interior designed entirely by the author in 1948-1949) and the iconic “Potence” lamp by Jean Prouvé, one of his most renowned pieces for the confluence of austerity and elegance.

While Prouvé subdues tubular steel to the minimum expression by giving it maximum intention, Cosp displays an almost pre-pop ingenuity by integrating a set of black balls with elliptical shapes. The language of each differs, as each shines with the aura of his genius, but both are fully ascribed to the international movement of the mid-twentieth century. The malleability imprinted on the metal and the avant-garde design, perforating the space with groundbreaking shapes, place them at the forefront, standing out among the most propositive pieces of a key moment in the history of furniture and modern design.

Cosp, represented at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Barcelona, and Prouvé, some of whose works are kept at the Pompidou Museum in Paris, are two names that head the main chapters of universal design in the 1950s.

On March 2, a notorious collection of oriental pieces will be auctioned at Setdart, where Ming and Qing porcelain will take center stage. Tradition and renovation go hand in hand to offer us a privileged vision of the artistic versatility that was achieved in these periods.

Trade was undoubtedly a fundamental phenomenon for the development of Chinese ceramics, influencing, to a great extent, the artistic manifestations that reflect an interesting and rich duality, maintaining, on the one hand, a strong rootedness to tradition and, on the other hand, manifesting the need to adapt to a new reality and taste, where the exchange of cultures is inevitable. Increased demand from the European and American markets forced Chinese potteries to accommodate Western tastes, resulting in a rich and extensive ceramic production never seen before.

This production can be divided into two major categories; “guanyao“destined for the court or imperial porcelain and “minyao“whose production was intended for everyday use and export. Both were carried out in separate kilns within the complex structure of the Jindezhen kilns. Although the production was differentiated according to its destination, the typologies were generalized, which gave rise to a classification of ceramics based on their decorations.

Blue and white porcelain is one of the most recognizable since the Ming dynasty reached its peak of technical virtuosity. Qing production will continue with traditional techniques, but will develop decorations adapted to foreign tastes. The difference in quality will be evident between those destined for cutting and those mass-produced for export, mainly reflected in the quality of the pigment and the pulp.

Kraak porcelain is a variation of the blue and white ware developed in the Ming dynasty, closely linked to export. Despite being less refined in their materials, these pieces still demonstrate great beauty, distinguished mainly by their decoration divided into cartouches.

On the other hand, the production of monochrome ceramics gained great popularity during the Qing dynasty, drawing again on the splendor of the past and even replicating its techniques, as can be seen in the Song dynasty. While it is true that one of the most popular colors was the “sang de boeuf”, red from copper oxide, colors such as turquoise, yellow or purple, among others, were also used in a wide production that has reached our days.

The typology corresponding to the green family and the pink family also gained much prominence during the 18th and 19th centuries. These ceramics are so called because in their overall polychromy, green or pink stand out especially from the others. Its decorations cover many motifs and are painted on all types of vessels, in many cases creating pieces of great quality, especially in the porcelain of the pink family, since the pigment was more modulable in kilns and offered the possibility of achieving a rich tonal range.

Western families, also known as the Indian company, developed from the 17th century onwards and their production grew considerably in the 18th century. These are pieces adapted to Western tastes. As Chinese art becomes known in the West, causing a great fascination due to its quality and the mysticism that surrounds its art and culture, the demand for porcelain increases significantly, leaving as a witness a large number of pieces that are preserved today and are highly appreciated by the market.

The tender of the 4 charcoal portraits of Luis Fernandez sheds light on one of the most brilliant, yet unknown stages of the artist.

At the beginning of the last century, when Paris was considered the world capital of art, many Spanish artists decided to move their creative epicenter to the neighboring country. In fact, and taking into account the artistic transcendence of figures such as Picasso and Miró, the Spanish contribution to the arrival of the first international modernity is unquestionable. Following in the footsteps of their predecessors and masters came a generation of artists who, like Palencia, Bores, or Luis Fernández, found in Paris the ideal artistic context in which to satisfy their yearning for experimentation.

The frenetic intellectual and creative ferment that took place during the first decades of the twentieth century led to the plastic conception of artists such as Luis Fernandez to develop under the yoke of abstract art, but also of realism, cubism and surrealism. While it is true that in broad strokes these currents were the ones that dominated the art scene, it is equally true that the multiple ruptures and idiosyncrasies produced at that time impose on us an eclectic and open story composed of microhistories and interconnections as rich and complex as the time in which they developed. In this sense, Luis Fernández’s career is one of the most interesting and unknown creative corpus of 20th century Spanish art.

After studying Fine Arts in Barcelona, the Asturian painter moved to Paris in 1927 to settle in the mythical Montparnasse district. The environment of cultural effervescence in which he was able to participate became the best school that any artist could wish for, to the point of experimenting with multiple avant-garde trends: from the purism of Le Corbusier, to the neoplasticism of Mondrian through the abstraction of Kandinsky and the surrealism of the dimensionist group, where he coincided with artists such as Miró, Calder, Hans Arp, Robert Delaunay or Marcel Duchamp.

The period between 1934 and 1944, to which the set of drawings in bidding belongs, is an exceptional and unique period in the career of Luis Fernández. In it, Picasso’s expressionism converges with the surrealist substratum, giving birth to a free interpretation of forms whose nature, while remaining within the limits of figuration, reinterprets the traditional conception of the portrait genre.

In fact, after reacting against the approaches of geometric abstraction, his link with surrealism will also manifest itself at the ideological and conceptual level, approaching the precepts of André Breton with whom he established a close friendship that would last until his death. In this approach to surrealism, the links he established with important figures in the field of collecting, such as the Zervos couple, were decisive. It was they who introduced him to the poet Rene Char, a figure who would become one of the most influential in the evolution of Fernandez’s career and his search for the common artistic absolute.

In parallel, Fernandez cultivated his interest in the theories of Sigmund Freud and his exploration of the human subconscious whose conception was, without a doubt, one of the foundational pillars of the surrealist movement. In this way, the works of the first period ascribed to surrealism comply with the attempt of the movement according to which the descent into hell is understood as a purifying act. In this sense, his good friend Maria Zambrano lucidly defined his work as a true “descent into the hells of being, into the world of the dark entrails, of blood and its nightmares”. These words refer us to a biography plagued since his childhood by the irreparable losses of his mother, father and brother that would deprive him of that feeling of rootedness and belonging under which we build our identity. Marked by his personal tragedy, the artist embarks on an ascensional journey in which, only by exploring the darkest and most recondite places within himself, will the light that dwells in them emerge through artistic expression.

“What I do is not painting, it’s things that come into my head that I have to do right away; whoever wants to see painting has.”

Pablo Picasso

On the other hand, the close contact he had with Picasso in the second half of the thirties added to his work a much more forceful, violent and expressive character. In fact, all his work will be crossed by the gaze of the author of Guernica, whose influence will become more significant after 1939, the year in which he carried out the four portraits in bidding. The virulence of the framing, the unhinged expression or the angular shapes of his figures refer us to the genius of Malaga, not only in its plastic conception but also in its ideological charge, becoming a symbol of the suffering inflicted on the Spanish people during the Civil War.

Perhaps his early departure to Paris, together with the fact that it was not until the arrival of democracy that his work was exhibited for the first time in a national museum, explain why an exceptional career such as his has remained in the shadows for so long. It is curious, however, to see how in his time great collectors and artists of the stature of Picasso, Zervos or De Ménil did not hesitate to buy his work, recognizing his talent, uniqueness and special sensitivity that vindicate him as one of the great exponents of Spanish art of the twentieth century.

What must a piece have to make a collector fall in love with it? Beauty, rarity and state of conservation are the main qualities.

The private collection presented by Setdart is a perfect example of dedication to the search for treasures from all over the world, covering different periods, materials and authors. Half a century of research, traveling the world, served to create an extraordinary collection based in London. The eclectic taste reflects an overflowing interest in a multitude of disciplines, from decorative arts to contemporary painting.

Interest could not be enough to find these pieces. The precise knowledge of each subject indicates the collector’s good eye, knowing how to recognize in a neoclassical biscuit, one of the last examples of the Buen Retiro, or in a wine decanter from the Royal Factory of Martinez, the coat of arms of a viceroy in America.

In order to make a journey through the collection, a brief summary can be made of the different disciplines it covers. As for the art of the 20th century, we note the interest in the artists of each decade, whether Spanish or foreign. Like the patrons of the Renaissance, the owners decided to bet on the promises and consolidated artists of their time, and even had a close and friendly relationship with them. A clear example of this are the exquisite drawings of Claudio Bravo.

The antique paintings range from Spanish to Italian works, and those of American colonial origin deserve special mention. In the 70’s and 80’s there was a great lack of knowledge about the American viceroyalty schools despite the fact that in our country we have, by historical tradition, some of their masterpieces. Thus, they were passionate about the mysterious and exotic aspects of colonial painting even though it was not fashionable or valuable for the market. In this field, the Villalpando panel and the work of Juan de Correa stand out. Following the thread of colonial art, they turned much of their interest to the works made in India for the Portuguese, English and Dutch colonists. The chests, chests of drawers and cabinets of marquetry that they collected are unique in terms of their quality.

The oriental world, always so evocative, has always generated an interest on the part of Europeans. China, in this case, becomes one of the highlights of this collection with the presence of furniture for export, made with the expensive huanghuali wood, or the Ming and India Company porcelain plates.

Turning finally to Europe, it is clear that the taste for the classic is a fundamental thread in all disciplines. Mythological scenes and furniture inspired by ancient Greece and Rome abound, whether in Regency, Empire, Fernandine or Charles X styles. Marbles, agates or porphyry are the attraction of any cabinet of curiosities, in which the souvenirs of the Grand Tour cannot be missing either.

A superb collection, treasured for half a century, comes on the market for the first time in four auction sessions that will take place from February 27 to March 2.

Jordi Pintó’s utopian geometries come to Setdart with one of his characteristic urban views.

Habitual for decades of the national art scene, the painter born in Cardona is now also an international attraction thanks to its growing presence in contemporary art fairs such as Turin, Singapore and Hong Kong. Its success in the recent exhibition Viva Arte Seoul, held at the Hyundai Museum ALT1, confirms once again that Spanish art has launched its conquest of the powerful Asian market.

Jordi Pintó’s work is in line with his particular way of understanding life, immersing us fully in magical scenographies that, under an apparent simplicity and placidity, hide a universe of fantasy in which inhabit a myriad of symbolisms that invite us to reflection.

His unique and unmistakable style is linked to the pictorial tradition of the last century and the utopian vision of avant-garde movements such as cubism, fauvism, constructivism, surrealism or metaphysical painting, deconstructs and reinterprets to give life to a fantasy reality that arises from the imagination, sense of humor and irony.

The crossbreeding of these references gives way to a work whose aesthetics, as naive as mysterious, is based on a vigorous chromatism and a precise and emphatic drawing that, with a pronounced tendency to geometrization and simplification of forms, gives his scenarios that balance between order and chaos that is so characteristic of his compositions.

Within the plastic imagery that he has been developing for more than three decades, urban views acquire a special significance, reflecting on existential issues such as the sustainability of society, ecology, alienation and loneliness. It is in these scenarios where the references to metaphysical painting and especially to that of its creator Giorgio de Chirico are most evident. Following his postulates, Pintó aspires to capture the inner life of the subconscious through the representation of scenarios or everyday objects that give rise to a kind of painted dream where reality becomes enigmatic until it becomes confused with dream and memory.

In this aspect, the figures that appear on the terraces and between the galleries reinforce this idea of introspection and existential concern by stripping them of their physiognomies and simplifying their anatomy to the maximum, just as Chirico did in his impassive faceless mannequins. The representation of the human figure will be understood as that of an automaton or machine, insisting once again on the idea of emptiness and loneliness provoked

by a time that, without any trace of humanity, neither advances nor arrives. His cheerful, naive and even childish appearance should not lead us to a superficial interpretation of his work, but rather invites us to discover and delve into the underlying layers of meaning. In fact, through the choice of perfectly studied titles, the artist launches a declaration of intentions that, in this case, underlines the link with de Chirico and the sensation of timelessness that he also conveyed with his characteristic urban views.

Magic, joie de vivre and love are only the epidermis of a work in which, if we stop for a moment, we will see the true existential burden that, like a catalog of emotions, is hidden under an apparent innocence.

The fruitful relationship between cinema and the plastic arts beats in the creative imagination of artists such as Picasso, Dalí, Chagall or Mimmo Rotella, who found in the seventh art their true inspirational muse.

Rotella, an artist of Calabrian origin, is considered one of the most important and influential references of contemporary art after the nineties. Although he has often been referred to as the Italian Warhol, labeling him under the precepts of American pop is a superficial and incomplete reading of his work that does not correspond to the critical dimension implicit in it. In fact, and despite using an imaginary that shares with pop art, it was precisely this critical component that brought him closer to the ideological world of the New Realists. who saw in art a way to bring man out of his self-absorption and make him reflect on the dangers of alienation in the capitalist system.

After his first artistic experiences in the field of the avant-garde under the orbit of an abstraction inherited from artists such as Kandinsky or Mondrian, Rotella left Paris to settle in the United States where he had the opportunity to meet the cream of the new artistic currents such as Pop art and abstract expressionism would incorporate into his artistic baggage. Upon his return to Rome in 1953, Rotella reaffirmed his idea of painting as an expressive medium whose possibilities had become totally obsolete. It was then that the critic Pierre Restany invited him to join the Nouveau Realisme collective, along with other artists such as Tinguely, Yves Klein, Spoerri and Arman. All of them focused their research on the plastic and aesthetic possibilities of the everyday object to create a new type of realism based on the image of modern society.

Aware of the growing power that the mass media had acquired after the World War and its impact on the urban space, Rotella saw in the advertising posters of mass culture and celluloid, a perfect icon of the new visual communication, whose nature, more in keeping with the sign of their time, made them the backbone of their production. In this way, he germinated what was his most prized hallmark and which, in clear opposition to collage, the artist called décollage. In them, the process of constructing a new image through adhesion is completely inverted, giving way to a work that is conceived from the subtraction of the remnants that have been rescued from degradation.

Although he was not the first to experiment with this procedure, Rotella, unlike his peers, did proceed to intervene his posters by modifying and tearing fragments that he then recomposed to create a new reality in which poveda art is already announced. In this sense, the process of deterioration to which the poster has been exposed grants it new plastic capacities in which the idea of art torn from the masses versus art torn by the masses comes into play, opposing the idea of appropriation and destruction.

The old movie posters, once torn off the walls, acquire a new significance that revolves around the idea of a society that is heading towards its destruction by leaps and bounds. Wearing out, mixing and blending together like the fragments that make up the composition, we witness the deterioration of something that shone for an era in the same way as the great Hollywood stars did until they were discarded by a society capable of glorifying and forgetting them with the same speed with which we dispose of a consumer product. This is the case of the bidding décollage corresponding to the film starring John Wayne, Rita Hayworth and Claudia Cardinale, “Le plus grand cirque du monde.“where the glamorous epic that empowered its stars during the 50s and 60s is reduced to a fantasy of the past, which, blurred and overshadowed, becomes one more victim of an increasingly standardized and globalized world.

Composing a new version of reality devoid of any idealism, their décollages have transcended as an eloquent reflection on the omnipresence of the image in today’s culturewhere fragility, the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of fashions become a symbol of capitalist deterioration that exposes an image of society eroded and phagocytized by the system itself.

The story of Olivier Bro de Comeres seems like the prelude to Lawrence of Arabia or some heroic novel. His biography has gone unnoticed for more than a century, until today.

Behind a red leather cover embroidered in the oriental style was hidden one of the best examples of painting and history of romanticism. The drawings it contained could well have passed as simple artistic notes. However, its value goes far beyond that, since, in addition to possessing the air of a novel yet to be written, it becomes an invaluable graphic testimony that treasures multiple architectural, ethnographic, historical and botanical records.

The fascination for the exotic and orientalist world dates back to the Middle Ages, when Venice became a veritable trading empire. However, it was not until 1798 when, after Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, a real fever was unleashed in Europe for everything related to the Egyptian and Arab world.

This expedition included military men and scholars from different fields: draughtsmen, botanists and architects who fulfilled their task of collecting the notes of each and every one of the wonders of the Egyptian past and its nature. All these works were compiled in the book, “Description de l’Égipte”, published between 1808 and 1822 and whose reading deeply penetrated Olivier’s mind. Once settled in Algeria and feeling like one of those scholars of the Egyptian expedition, Bro de Comeres reflected through his drawings an evident intention to record all aspects of a culture practically unknown to Europeans.

The origins of this story go back to Paris in the early 19th century, when General Louis Bro, one of the leading figures of his time, was sent in 1833 to conquer Algeria. On this mission he was accompanied by the young 21-year-old officer Olivier Bro, who from the moment he arrived in the city of Alger, devoted himself to record in his notebooks different aspects and impressions of the place, from its perspectives and buildings, to its people and customs.

His fascination with drawing a culture that was not his own led him to reproduce the smallest and most anecdotal details very quickly, as is corroborated in the 20 drawings he made in just one month. In them, one can feel the will to bet on veracity, showing, above the aesthetic aspects, the daily life of each scene.

An example of this are these drawings where the artist immerses us fully in the atmosphere of the environment, capturing with total veracity a vivid moment. Proof of his accuracy in representing each of the characters and environments are the notes that he himself wrote on the back of the works in relation to the names, professions and personal details of the life of each one of them.

It is also worth mentioning the prominence of women in his work, regardless of their origin, religion or social position. Among them, the ones known as odalisques stand out, who with their sensual appearance and dressed in luxurious dresses, jewelry and embroidery become one of the most attractive features of the collection. His enigmatic ladies, who appear in scenes of seduction with the artist himself, acquire a real presence that, far from being a prototype, hide their own biographies.

Finally, taking into account his military work in Algeria, we cannot fail to mention the battles, sieges, soldiers and camps whose representation becomes an unparalleled historical document. As if he were a war reporter, Oliver Bro informs us of various events such as the capture of the city of Constantine or the destruction of the city of Medea. Also of great interest are the drawings taken during the battles for the relatives of the fallen or wounded soldiers in which their struggle is heroically described.

The whole ensemble is a valuable piece of history that has remained alive thanks to the dedication and passion of figures such as Olivier Bro de Comeres.

Throughout the 20th century, sculpture underwent probably the most radical revolution in its history. The aesthetic fracture brought about by the avant-garde also brought about a reformulation in the conception of sculptural practice, whose principles and procedures had become obsolete.

For centuries, Spanish sculpture was a reproduction of the forms, themes and materials developed in the Baroque period. However, the new and convulsive times demanded more than ever new expressive formulas capable of reflecting this new reality. This dizzying conceptual redefinition of sculpture is marked by an unprecedented variety of styles, themes and media whose complexity does not allow for the construction of a linear narrative with a single meaning.

Thus, in the first decades of the century, Cubism swept away many of the sacred principles of traditional art, unleashing an inescapable need for experimentation. Thus, figurative art in which the representation of the human figure was losing steam in favor of new abstract expressions in which the idea of volume and form is the result of the play between occupied space and emptiness. This desire for renewal was manifested in the use of new techniques and materials, such as iron forging, which represented a real revulsive in a sculptural conception identified until then with the solid and solid. This impulse initiated by artists such as Gargallo, Julio Gonzalez or Pablo Picasso opened the way for later generations of artists such as Martín Chirino who transformed this material into authentic visual poems.

Martin Chirino
“Atlántica III- The sea”, 1988.
Awarded for 65.000€ in Setdart

“Homage” Marinetti Series XI” reveals the principles on which Martin Chirino built his work, whose abstract aesthetics always had nature as a final reference and especially that of his native land. Since he joined the El Paso group in 1950, the Canarian artist found what would be the leitmotiv of his entire career: the curved line. Through it, Chirino endowed the iron with a soul of its own in which the expression of his island origins beats. As it is extensible to all his work, his homages to Marinetti, founder of futurism, cannot be conceived without the spirals and curvatures to which he subjects the iron, twisting it with a fascinating elegance. to draw an exquisitely delicate line in space. In this way, Chirino combined in his work the memory of the past, rediscovering Canarian culture with the postulates of the Spanish avant-garde of the fifties, until he became part of the first generation of post-war Spain to relate to international artistic creation.

After 70 years working with iron, Chirino achieved one of his highest creative aspirations: that his sculptures would fly and flow like the wind of his inseparable Las Canteras Beach.

The artist, who was recognized as one of the great introducers in Spain of abstract expressionism and gestural informalism, once again becomes an exceptional protagonist of our auction, this time with one of his most recognized series: Mutations.

The importance of Antonio Saura in the renewal of Spanish post-war art is clearly unquestionable. In addition to the unavoidable influence of American abstract expressionism and French informalism, the tragic substratum that pervades each and every one of his works hides numerous references rooted both in the wild vein of Spanish painting and in European Nordic expressionism.

In this sense, Saura approaches the creative act from a more visceral side, close to that of his admired Pollock. In them the pictorial gestures reach an absolute liberation where the frenetic and nervous strokes crowd the surface of the work. However, Saura’s work does not develop in pure abstraction, but rather, supported by certain figurative elements, the artist confronts the great themes of humanity that are the backbone of his work. Undoubtedly, and as we see in the ink on paper belonging to his “Mutations” series, the backbone of his work was always the human figure and, very specifically, their faces and heads, which, starting from the figurative substratum, he subjected to a radical transformation associated with the gestural painting of the “Mutations” series. action paiting and informalism. Through the strident features, which by means of frenetic strokes break the limits of the face, Saura reveals a heartbreaking portrait of a society that, stripped of its identity, is consumed in a world in perpetual contradiction and decadence.

In fact, all of its most emblematic series draw directly from some of the most significant artists who anticipated and elevated the expressionist aesthetics and philosophy to the highest levels. turning his work into an authentic parade of an endless number of mutilated and distressed aberrant characters that, as his admired Goya, Munch or Ensor did, show us the monstrous side that resides in every being.

“Multitude”, 1970
Lot awarded at Setdart

Since 1956, when the first head appeared in his paintings, it became one of his signs of identity, completely conditioning the development of his own universe full of eyes, faces, signs and violent strokes that become a true catalog of the obsessions, passions and fears that Saura faced with brutal honesty. Their deconstructed or variegated heads, fused in a somber atmosphere reduced to black and white tones, are rooted in Goya’s Black Paintings and Munch’s frightened characters. who, respectively ahead of their time and analyzing their own, showed the reality of a century that would go down in history as the century of horror. In a continuous process of construction and destruction that defines the image, Saura took up the baton of both artists, representing the alienation of the human being in faces that, diluted, mutilated and transfigured, become both victim and executioner of the disasters that occurred throughout the twentieth century. In short, Saura’s faces stand as the symbol par excellence of the unbridgeable abyss to which humanity is heading.

In short, the monstrous characters of Goya, Munch and Saura shout the same lesson: if they take away our identity, they take away everything, even our humanity. This is the great learning that Goya, in his lucid and torn vision of humanity, brought to modern art. Because the human condition is implicit in the condition of a monster, two sides of the same coin that in the 20th century became an incontestable truth that Goya anticipated and in which Saura projected the stark reality of a world in decline.

On January 24 Setdart will tender a large selection of archaeological pieces. Vestiges of numerous cultures are brought together in this auction, testifying to the cultural richness and artistic quality of the first civilizations.

To think of Egypt is to be transported to a distant, exotic and mysterious world. Travel to the cradle of one of the world’s first civilizations that arouses equal parts mystery and fascination for its ancient and millenary culture. The classical historian Herodotus (Halicarnassus, 484 B.C.-Turians, 425 B.C.) described in his second book the customs and peculiarities of Egypt, but in turn fed the legends and myths about the society of the pharaohs. In the 19th century, thanks to the revitalization of archaeology as a discipline and the decipherment of hieroglyphic writing, the study of antiquity in Egypt flourished, resulting in the consolidation of Egyptology as a full-fledged science.

Even so, the legends, the stories of tomb raiders and the curses of the pharaohs to those who dared to disturb their eternity have perpetuated the idea of a magical and mysterious Egypt. No wonder, since Egypt cannot be understood without its vision of the “Beyond”, the search for eternity after death. Many of the testimonies that have come down to us are a reflection of this cyclical conception of life. Religion regulates this aspiration, the ancient beliefs of the Egyptian civilization direct man to prepare his whole life for the journey that awaits him. Every deed he does will be judged at the judgment of Osiris.

Symbolism pervaded Egyptian art and played an important role in establishing a sense of order. This idiosyncrasy permeated all aspects of artistic production from material to technique. The rotundity of the stone, its enduring quality and its resistance were highly valued qualities in an art whose purpose was directed towards the search for eternity. In many cases, the Egyptians used the technique of sunken relief, with the intention of better capturing sunlight and thus highlighting contours and shapes. Creating images starring pharaohs and their court, animals or fauna. In short, capturing the world of the living and transmitting in stone a culture that through its art documented the beginnings of a civilization and the society that inhabited it. Vestiges that transmit the knowledge of a culture dependent on the gods, largely hierarchical, knowledgeable about nature and influenced by a cyclical conception of life and death that provoked an intense search for eternity.

The genesis of his unmistakable style is born of multiple references and influences that confirm the polyhedral character of the artist in which the post-impressionist heritage of artists such as Henri Rousseau, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gauguin or Toulouse Lautrec converge with the Renaissance pictorial tradition and the references of magical realism, giving way to a work where hyperrealism and surrealism intermingle to create scenes as enigmatic and disconcerting as they are strangely beautiful.

Gino’s multifaceted nature is also evident in the technique used, where the boundaries between painting and photography are diluted until reaching an intriguingly ambiguous creative universe that immerses us in the complexities of personal relationships. In this sense, the work in tender represents a magnificent example of the idiosyncrasy of his work, where painting is combined with different collage elements, such as holograms, pieces of fabric or plastic, natural hair or small objects. Likewise, the scenarios represented recreate an unsettling world full of irony and eroticism inhabited by animals, adult-looking child figures and people who look at us inquisitively through which the artist explores almost obsessively the complexities of human relationships and, very specifically, of the sentimental relationships that take place in contemporary society, exploring their conflicts, rhetoric and fragile balances.

In this aspect the figure of women will have a specific weight within his imaginary, representing them as dangerous creatures in which he personifies the duality existing between the beautiful and the sinister, between being loved and dominated. But far from a misogynistic reading, Gino argues that his paintings represent precisely the historical fear that men have harbored in recent centuries regarding women and their struggle for power.