EUGENIO LUCAS VILLAAMIL Madrid (1858) / (1918)... Lot 229

EUGENIO LUCAS VILLAAMIL Madrid (1858) / (1918) “Sketches for the ceilings of the music room and the comedy room of the Parque Florido palace, by Don Jose Lazaro Galdiano” Pair of oil paintings on canvas. Signed in the lower left corner. Don Jose Lazaro Galdiano, businessman, intellectual and great art collector, was a pioneer in the recovery of “The Lucas”. Studying the figure of Eugenio Lucas Velazquez, a romantic painter with clear Goyesque affiliations, he made contact with his son, Eugenio Lucas Villaamil, who at that time was living in poverty. He was fascinated by his work and acquired a good number of his paintings, also commissioning several frescoes from the Parque Florido palace, his former residence, which today houses the state museum that bears his name. Examples of the decorative work carried out by the painter in this space are this pair of canvases with an allegorical theme that stand out for their loose, sketchy brushwork and their rich and vivid chromaticism. The first corresponds to the one that decorates the music room, featuring some of the family's favorite composers such as Verdi, Chopin, Rossini, Beethoven, Mozart, or Liszt. The second, executed for the comedy cabinet, includes poets, novelists and playwrights from different periods, led by Lope de Vega. Measurements: 56 x 47 cm. each