Spanish school of the second half of the 19th century

Spanish school of the second half of the 19th century.
"Portrait of a gentleman.
Oil on canvas.
It has a small tear in the central part and losses in the margins.
Measurements: 82,5 x 64 cm.
In this work we see a typical nineteenth-century portrait, with the gentleman seated in the foreground. The gentleman wears a black suit and a white shirt with a high starched collar, with his gaze to infinity and a serious countenance. As in the rest of Europe, portraiture became the leading genre in Spanish painting in the 19th century as a result of the new social structures that were established in the Western world during that century, embodying the ultimate expression of the transformation in the taste and mentality of the new clientele that emerged among the nobility and the wealthy gentry, who were to take the reins of history in this period. While official circles gave precedence to other artistic genres, such as history painting, and the incipient collectors encouraged the profusion of genre paintings, portraits were in great demand for paintings intended for the more private sphere, as a reflection of the value of the individual in the new society. This genre embodies the permanent presence of the image of its protagonists, to be enjoyed in the privacy of a studio, in the everyday warmth of a family cabinet or presiding over the main rooms of the house.