Juan Del Moral Almansa

JUAN DEL MORAL ALMANSA, del (Granada, 1861 - Almería, 1929).
"Portrait of an old woman.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
It has slight damage to the paint and the frame.
Measurements: 100 x 73 cm; 114 x 85 x 5 cm (frame).

Juan Del Moral Almansa was a painter from Granada. Disciple of Juan de Mata Prats, he is considered, together with Andrés Giuliani and Antonio Bédmar, one of the masters of the Almerian painting of the XIX century. An excellent portrait painter, he left numerous proofs of his mastery in this genre, including that of Remedios (1913), his wife, and her brother, Dean Alvarez-Benavides, those of Diego Muñoz, Abelardo Gonzalez Olid (1906)... all of magnificent workmanship, although, according to his grandson, Jesus de Perceval, the portrait he always felt most proud of was the one he did of Mariano Zamora, now disappeared. As a European traveler, he often stayed in London and, above all, in Paris, where he always met with the draftsman Manuel Luque, his former disciple and protégé, one of the painters and writers who enjoyed his patronage. Delicate sketches of fashionable ladies and gentlemen date from those trips. A contributor to the magazine La Ilustración Española y Americana, in his facet as a literary illustrator, the work El Quitolis, by José Jesús García, an anticlerical republican with whom he had a close friendship, never tarnished by the difference of ideas, stands out. El Torneo, a literary magazine from Almeria (1881-83), is illustrated with his drawings, which more than caricatures are authentic portraits to which he reduces the body and adds some other attribute referring to the activity of the characters portrayed.