Attributed to Antoni Gaudí

Attributed to ANTONI GAUDÍ (Reus or Riudoms, Tarragona, 1852 - Barcelona, 1926).
Pair of pedestals for planters, ca.1900.
Wrought iron and patinated.
The wing of a dragon has restoration.
Measurements: 106 x 60 x 60 cm.

Pair of wrought iron planter stands attributed to Antoni Gaudí, where his overflowing imagination and technical mastery are evident. The openwork structure is composed of wavy sheets of hammered metal that rise like sinuous stems. At the base, small dragon heads emerge between the borders, topping scrolls that evoke reptilian bodies, a motif that is repeated at the top, where the larger dragons spread their ribbed wings. The stems intertwine to form scrolls and their hammered surface reinforces the organic appearance of the whole. In this modernist work, Gaudí ingeniously reinterprets the Gothic bestiary.

In style and technique these pedestals respond to the type of decorative objects, authentic works of art, that Gaudí conceived to conceive as a whole the container and the content, the architecture and the decorative elements. Thus, the planters were integrated with the rest of the elements of an elegant interior, placed on the balconies or railings of his most emblematic buildings: La Pedrera, Casa Vicens, Casa Batlló or Park Güell. Nature thus burst into the house, creating a harmonious relationship between interior and exterior. Gaudí, a connoisseur of artistic forging since he was a child (he had grown up in a family of blacksmiths), collaborated with expert craftsmen such as the Badia brothers or Joan Oñós to execute these works. Already in his formative years he frequented various craft workshops, such as those of Eudald Puntí and Llorenç Matamala, where he learned the basics of all trades related to architecture.

The maximum representative of Catalan modernism and, therefore, of Spanish modernism, Gaudí is one of the most outstanding architects and decorators in European history. Already as a child he liked hiking, the direct contact with nature. Having stood out as a child for his drawings, he studied architecture at the Escuela de la Llotja and the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, where he graduated in 1878. With his first major commission, the Casa Vicens, Gaudí began to acquire renown, and to attract increasingly larger commissions. In 1878 he exhibited at the Universal Exposition in Paris a showcase made for the Comella glove shop. This piece, with its modernist and functional design, impressed the industrialist Eusebi Güell, a key figure in Gaudí's artistic biography. In fact, Güell was, in addition to being Gaudí's great friend, his main patron, and commissioned some of his most outstanding works, such as the Park Güell. In 1883 he accepted the commission to continue the work on the Sagrada Familia; Gaudí totally modified the initial project, and this construction became his masterpiece, on which he worked until the day of his death. This project was followed by other important commissions, such as the episcopal palace of Astorga, the Batlló and Milá houses and the restoration of the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca. In 1910 the first exhibition dedicated to Gaudí was held at the Grand Palais in Paris. After his death, important retrospectives of the architect were held, including the one at the MOMA in New York, his first major international exhibition, which took place in 1957. Since the mid-twentieth century, Gaudí's appreciation has been increasing, culminating with the proclamation of several of his works as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1984 (Park Güell, Palacio Güell and Casa Milá), and 2005 (crypt and apse of the Sagrada Familia, the houses Vicens and Batlló and the crypt of the Colonia Güell). Gaudí's designs for furniture and decorative arts can currently be admired at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the MOMA in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, as well as in his House-Museum in Park Güell.