Attributed to Eugenio Lucas Velázquez

Attributed to EUGENIO LUCAS VELÁZQUEZ (Madrid, 1817 - 1870).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
Presents losses in the pictorial layer.
Measurements: 61 x 51 cm; 75 x 56 cm (frame).
The author of this work offers us a work of clearly romantic heritage, starring a group of bandits resting inside a cave. The work is fully framed within the Spanish regionalist current, still firmly anchored in the aesthetics of the nineteenth century, where the vindication of the Spanish is not limited to the subject matter, but also affects the technical aspect: we see an impastoed and undone invoice, rich in matter and also in detail, which reflects the brightness of the fabrics in the same way that Diego Velázquez did, a great reference along with Francisco de Goya for a nineteenth-century Spanish school that rediscovers the modernity of its old masters.
The piece is largely reminiscent of the production of Eugenio Lucas Velázquez. Referred to 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 the neoclassicism of the Academy of San Fernando, he soon turned his training around and dedicated himself to the study of 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 to develop an imaginative personal painting, of fantastic visions and unleashed passions, within the purest romantic style. He also took the subject matter from Goya, and painted scenes of the Inquisition, covens, pilgrimages and bullfights. He also painted, in 1850, the now disappeared ceiling of the Royal Theater of Madrid, and later he was named honorary chamber painter and knight of the order of Carlos III by Queen Isabel II. As a good romantic, he made several trips, among which his stays in Italy, Morocco and Paris stand out. His works are characterized by the use of a spirited brushstroke and a casual style, without draftsmanship concerns, with a dense and impastoed matter of great chromatic richness and with the presence of strong chiaroscuro. He achieved great success as a painter of manners and scenes of fantastic and sinister character, although it is true that he was also an excellent landscape painter and portraitist. His work is well represented in the Prado Museum, and also in other centers such as the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Goya Museum in Castres (France).