JUAN PABLO SALINAS TERUEL (Madrid, 1871 - Rome,... Lot 98

JUAN PABLO SALINAS TERUEL (Madrid, 1871 - Rome, 1946). La partida de cartas" ("The Card Game"). Oil on panel. Signed in the lower right corner. Measurements: 23,5 x 37,5 cm; 48,5 x 64,6 cm (frame). Juan Pablo Salinas was a virtuous painter of costumbrist themes full of grace and juicy mischief, giving us this interior of a wine cellar an outstanding example. Four card players playfully exchange pleasantries as they deal the cards, and a beautiful woman amusedly and mischievously observes the game. With vibrant touches of colour and light, every detail is captured with descriptive eagerness: mantillas, headscarves, floral combs, parchment-like faces set against rosy, rosy ones, drapery iridescing like silk and cotton garments. Juan Pablo Salinas began his artistic training at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, although his time in the classroom was probably short-lived. He began to make a name for himself in 1885, when he took part in the exhibition organised by the Association of Writers and Artists and in the Aragonese Exhibition, being awarded a third-class medal in both. Around 1886 he moved to Rome to further his studies thanks to a grant awarded by the Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza. There he attended the Círculo Internacional de Bellas Artes, as well as the evening classes at the Academia Chigi. He also joined the Spanish artistic colony resident in the city and worked alongside his brother, the painter Agustín Salinas, who had been living in Rome since 1883. Both brothers submitted works to the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1887; Juan Pablo sent "Mark Antony and Cleopatra", a classical theme. Like his brother, his true master, Salinas also recreated medieval themes with a notable Tuscan influence, with works such as "Romeo and Juliet" and "Scene from the Decameron". His style evolved towards costumbrismo, with special attention to popular Spanish and Italian scenes, such as "Una boda en Aragón" (A Wedding in Aragón), "Regreso de los vendimiadores" (Return of the Grape Harvesters) and other works. His career remained closely linked to that of his brother until, on a trip to Paris, he became acquainted with the work of Ernest Meissonier, whose influence led him to focus on the genre of casacons, with which he achieved great success in France, Italy, Central Europe, Russia and America. Around this time he exhibited in the Salons Roger and began his famous compositions of eighteenth-century atmosphere, in which he depicted figures dressed in the fashion of the time in luxurious interiors, meticulously detailed using a precious technique that is recreated in the colourful description of clothes and lace but, above all, in the masterly treatment of the deliberately sensual female flesh tones. During this period Salinas also produced several series for the decoration of large salons. In addition to these themes, he painted orientalist scenes and church interiors. In the last stage of his career we can see a decrease in detail, a looser and less descriptive character. Juan Pablo Salinas is currently represented in the Prado Museum (his work is on deposit at the Asturias Fine Arts Museum in Oviedo), the Bellver Collection in Seville and other public and private collections.