Eduardo Llorens Masdéu

EDUARDO LLORENS MASDÉU (Barcelona, 1837-1912).
"Justice" and "Charity".
Pair of oils on canvas. Restored
Signed, one of them, in the lower margin.
Measurements: 250 x 120 cm; 253 x 123 cm (frame).

Pair of oil paintings of large proportions, made by one of the most quoted interior decorators painters of his time. They represent, respectively, the allegory of Justice and Charity. The two paintings form an allegorical diptych that, through composition, iconography and the use of color, conveys a moral message of classicist inspiration, ascribed to the academic currents of historical and allegorical painting of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the first painting, a luminous female figure descends on a cluster of fluffy clouds and gives a pearl necklace to a humble-looking character, sitting on an arid ground (allegory of Charity). In the second, the same female figure adopts a more severe and energetic attitude. She floats on a sea of clouds, holds a sword and points with an accusing gesture to the same character, whose gesture transmits repentance (allegory of Justice). In both, the play of light is soft, ethereal. The color palette is rich in vaporous ranges. It is a work marked by the precision in the drawing, the harmony in the composition and the idealization of the figures, with references to the allegorical and mythological painting of European academicism.

Catalan painter and decorator, Eduardo Llorens Masdéu studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris with Gleyre, after having trained at the Llotja School. In the Fine Arts Exhibition held in Madrid in 1864, he presented two paintings, "The Corpus Christi Procession in Catalonia" and "Judith". To the one of 1866 of Barcelona he competed with three paintings, one of them, "Prometatatge", awarded with an honorable mention and acquired by the academy of that city, which would exhibit it later in the provincial museum. Among his interior decorations, the paintings for the Palacio de Sobrellano in the Pantheon of Comillas stand out. His credit was strengthened with a ceiling he painted for the palace of Salvador de Samà in Barcelona, representing the Disembarkation of Columbus in America.