Salvador Sánchez-Barbudo

SALVADOR SÁNCHEZ-BARBUDO MORALES, (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1857 - Rome, 1917).
"The Cardinal", Rome.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and located in the lower right corner.
Presents visible restoration on the back.
Measurements: 40 x 31 cm; 48 x 39 cm (frame).

Painting resolved with the precious technique characteristic of Sánchez-Barbudo. The warm and royal tones of the cardinal red contrast with the gold of the wood and the white of the blouses. The velvet of the armchair harmonizes with the color of the cardinal's cape, which cascades and folds in broken draperies. With his rimless spectacles, he expresses concentration as he listens to his assistant read a letter, probably a missive of political or religious importance. On the table, the inkwell is suggested with a quick brushstroke. Minimal elements give the scene an intellectual and diplomatic character.

Interested in drawing and painting from an early age, Sánchez-Barbudo began his training in the workshop of the restorer Pedro Vera. At the age of nineteen he moved to Seville to study at the Provincial School of Fine Arts, thanks to the support of his protector and patron, the Marquis del Castillo, and there he became a disciple of José Villegas. In 1878 he traveled to Madrid to further his education, remaining in the capital for four years. In 1881 he took part in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts and was awarded a third class medal for his work "Un salón de esgrima". The following year he went to Rome with his master. Due to the influence of the latter, and given that Villegas was a friend of Rosales, Fortuny, Zamacois and others, as well as a painter with a magnificent clientele (Vanderbilt, Stuard, Krupp...), Sánchez-Barbudo began to work in the fashionable genre, the costumbrista historicism (known as "casacones"). Fascinated by the artistic environment of the Italian capital, Sánchez-Barbudo decided to settle down and, from then on, to make the city the protagonist of his painting. He cultivated, in addition to the themes of casacones, the scenes of high society and the landscape, in paintings of small format, and stood out in a special way in the portrait. Occasionally he sent works to the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts in Madrid. In 1884 he sent to Spain the monumental canvas entitled "Hamlet. Last scene", with which he won a second medal at the National Exhibition of the same year. He exported his works especially to England, where his historicist costumbrismo paintings were extraordinarily well received, and he himself enjoyed a reputation as an exquisite painter. Sánchez-Barbudo demonstrates in his works a perfect mastery of the basics of the genre: a wise combination of bourgeois naturalism and loose-fitting preciosity. His brushstroke is fast and precise, and he brings to the chromatism a totally personal vibration and variety. He worked with small touches, both in the figures and in the scenery, paying special attention to the atmosphere. He was also an excellent watercolorist and engraver.