The painting is of a lady wearing a dress in the French style, the predominant fashion for virtually the whole of the eighteenth century, with a pointed diadem and a hairband decorated with pearls. This seigniorial appearance is mixed with elements typical of hunting, such as a light leather cuirass, a bow and a quiver full of arrows. It is a curious combination of naturalism and symbolism, halfway between a portrait and an allegory of the goddess Diana, praised for her strength and beauty.
The work, which once belonged to the Modernista interior decorator and furniture maker Gaspar Homar, and which was also in the collection of Oleguer Junyent, is dated and signed by Pere Crusells, a Catalan artist who in this case takes his inspiration from the painting of France and northern Italy (Turin and Genoa).
Crusells’s painting clearly shows an excessive reliance on engraved graphic sources, to which he resorted somewhat repeatedly. Despite his technical limitations, that fact that he signed a large number of works suggests that he was an artist with a high degree of self-esteem who took advantage of his commissions to advance himself.
1725 Allegory Oil on canvas portrait painting by Pere Crusells from the 8th century. Size: 105.5 x 83 cm that was purchased 1931
About Artist Pere Crusells
Pere Crusells or Crosells ( Barcelona , c. 1672 – 1742 ) was a Spanish Baroque painter .
Son of a Barcelona shoemaker, in 1689 he entered the workshop of the painter Josep Vives, with whom he began his artistic training. In 1704 he entered the College of Painters and the following year he married the daughter of Onofre Casanovas, another poorly known painter. He was elected second consul of the College of Painters in 1717, although the appointment was possibly revoked because of his past austracista . I Over time, in 1721, he reoccupied the square of the second consul, clavario in 1725 and first consul in 1726 and 1734. the latest are from 1742 and show that at that time had completely lost sight.
Pere Crusells Work
He specialized in miniature painting, a technique with which he portrayed Archduke Carlos in 1708 (3.5 x 2.8 cm, Barcelona, Institut Municipal d’Història). However, it is clear that he also painted larger portraits and among them a half-length one of Felipe V for the office of the royal sub-delegate in the Barcelona mint. His Portrait of a Lady with the attributes of Diana (1725, MNAC ) shows a early assimilation of French models, although in his work as a whole he does not completely detach himself from the taste for earthy colors characteristic of Valencian sixteenth-century painting, as is most clearly noted in the Ecstasy of Saint Francis of Catalan Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Jorge .
A flagellation in copper with a miniaturist finish, copy of a French stamp (MNAC), and a Coming of the Holy Spirit in poor condition, complete the number of his known works; the documentation indicates, however, that production must have been abundant, both miniatures technique that is said to be made portraits of the size of a coin, and larger paintings for churches and convents of Barcelona.