Circle of EUGENIO LUCAS VELAZQUEZ (Madrid, 1817 - 1870), mid-19th century.
"El chispero".
Oil on canvas.
Information papers on the subject depicted are attached to the back of the painting: "a man from the lower town of Madrid. On the 2nd of May they were fighters at the Puerta del Sol. This personage put on the warrior's jacket of a fallen Frenchman".
Measurements: 40 x 31,5 cm; 53 x 44 cm (frame).
This is an ennobling portrait of a popular figure from nineteenth-century Madrid. Specifically, as we read in the informative text on the back, the intention is to represent an intrepid chispero who, after taking part in the uprising against the Napoleonic forces, has defiantly donned a Napoleonic hat. This is an indirect reference to the uprising of 2 May (Madrid, 1808). In terms of technique, we can see the proximity of Eugenio Lucas's models in the manner of resolving the chiaroscuro and in the expressive vivacity. The rough, thick-lipped face is nevertheless softened by the limpid glow of the iris and the goodness that radiates from the countenance.
Mentioned since the 19th century as Eugenio Lucas Padilla, or Eugenio Lucas the Elder, he was the Spanish Romantic artist who best understood Goya's art. Trained in Neoclassicism at the San Fernando Academy, he soon turned his training around and devoted himself to studying Velázquez and, above all, Goya, whose works he admired and copied in the Prado Museum. In Goya's painting, Lucas Velázquez found the starting point for developing his own imaginative personal painting of fantastic visions and unleashed passions, in the purest Romantic style. He also took his subject matter from Goya and painted scenes of the Inquisition, witches' Sabbaths, pilgrimages and bullfights. In 1850 he also painted the ceiling of the Royal Theatre in Madrid, which no longer exists, and later he was appointed honorary chamber painter and knight of the order of Charles III by Queen Isabella II. As a true Romantic, he made several trips, including stays in Italy, Morocco and Paris. His works are characterised by the use of a spirited brushstroke and an unhurried execution, without any concern for drawing, with a dense, impastoed material of great chromatic richness and the presence of strong chiaroscuro. He achieved great success as a genre painter and as a painter of fantastic and sinister scenes, although he was also an excellent landscape and portrait painter. His work is well represented in the Prado Museum, and also in other centres such as the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Goya Museum in Castres (France).