Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Achille

Attributed to JEAN-BAPTISTE ACHILLE ZO (Bayonne, 1826 - Bordeaux, 1901).
"The door of Toledo".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 81 x 60 cm; 88 x 66 cm (frame).
This work follows the model of the painting by Jean Baptiste Achille, which is currently part of the collection of the Museum of Carcassonne. In this case, the present work has a more sketchy aspect. The work captures a unique moment in the daily life of passers-by who gather before a musician playing the guitar. The painting is inscribed within the framework of the regionalism boom that during the second half of the XIX century and the first third of the XX century, an art of romantic heritage, costumbrista and of realistic and meticulous invoice was developed, which focused on the representation of subjects, themes and characters that reflect a new sense of folklore. In this context, the painters sought to reflect the types and customs of their own land, which made it different and unique, thus vindicating their own roots and, above all, the traditions and ways of dressing and behaving that were threatened by the notable growth of urban areas and the imposition of new fashions brought from outside.
Art, fundamentally in its pictorial aspect, thus becomes in a certain way a vehicle of expression capable of making regional peculiarities known to the rest of the nation.Jean Baptiste Achille Zo was born in the Basque Country, after being orphaned during his childhood, he decided to become a painter following in his father's footsteps. He began his training in Bordeaux where he worked as an apprentice decorator in the theater workshop of the city. In 1847, he made the trip to Paris and became a pupil of Thomas Couture for a year. Until 1860 he lived between Bordeaux, where he continued his work as a decorator, and Bayonne. He then moved to Spain, where he continued his training as a copyist in the museums of Madrid, during which time he also spent time in Andalusia, a place that inspired many of his works. After his journey through Spain, Achille returned to Paris and produced his first outstanding painting, Adventurers playing dice, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1855. During this period he exhibited regularly at the Salon where he received an honorable mention in 1861 for Gitanos du Monte-Sagrado en Granada. In 1862, the city of Bayonne awarded him a medal of honor for his travels and he was later appointed director of the Bayonne School of Drawing (1871-1888), which he reorganized. In 1873 he founded the municipal museum of painting, of which he became curator. He was then appointed director of the Bordeaux School of Fine Arts from 1889, of which he became honorary director from 1899. In 1886, he was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
Achille specialized in thematic paintings, first linked to his native region, the Basque Country, and especially to Spain, such as bullfights, or scenes of Spain, especially Andalusia, many of his works have a strong influence of the orientalist current. Today his work can be visited in great centers of cultural interest, such as the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Libourne, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne (La Porte de Tolède) and especially in the Bonnat-Helleu museum in Bayonne, as he was closely linked to Léon Bonnat, with whom he trained a whole generation of regional painters, students of the Bayonne School of Drawing and later of the Paris School of Fine Arts, "the Bayonne school", including his own son Henri Achille Zo.