Ricardo Canals

Ivo Bosch (Paris-based Catalan banker; commissioned from the artist)
Galeria del Cisne, Madrid (by 1963)
Acquired by the great-uncle of the present owners by the 1970s

Museo de Arte Moderno de Barcelona, Canals: exposición conmemorativa del centenario de su nacimiento, 1976, no. 7
Barcelona, Museu Picasso, Devorar Paris. Picasso 1900-1907, 2011, no. 73, illustrated in the catalogue

José Lopez-Rey, 'The Early Picasso', in Apollo, June 1963, p. 520, discussed and illustrated

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd, 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, London, SW1Y 6BU: UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural condition The canvas is lined and is securely attached to a keyed wooden stretcher. There is a large, complex repaired tear running through the lower centre of the composition as viewed from the reverse. This is currently entirely stable but is quite unsightly and relining should be considered to ensure the painting's long term structural stability. There are what appear to be to be diagonal canvas inserts in each of the four corners of the composition which are presumably contemporary to the lining process. There is a minor indentation to the canvas in the lower right quadrant of the composition within the floral fabric draped over the green balcony. Paint Surface The painting has an uneven and heavily discoloured varnish layer and an ingrained dirt layer which is particularly evident within the figures' faces. The painting would undoubtedly respond very well to cleaning. There is a raised craquelure pattern running through the face and dress of the figure wearing the black shawl in the centre of the composition. This appears fragile and in need of localised consolidation. There are a number of further areas of fragile and lifting paint with associated paint loss, most notably to the lower part of the previously mentioned female figure's purple dess, and towards the centre of the right vertical framing edge. Inspection under ultra-violet light confirms the heavily discoloured varnish layers. Inspection under ultra-violet light also shows scattered areas of retouching including: 1) an area running through the face, chest and arm of the figure wearing the black shawl in the centre of the composition, 2) scattered retouchings within the purple dress of the figure mentioned above, 3) areas of retouching corresponding to the previously mentioned canvas inserts in the corners of the composition, 4) an area of retouching which fluoreceses faintly under ultra-violet light and corresponds to the repair visible on the reverse of the canvas, 5) scattered retouchings within the lower right quadrant of the composition, and 6) several small retouchings within the brown background in the upper right quadrant of the composition. Due to the discoloured and opaque nature of the varnish layers it is difficult to ascertain the extent of any previous restoration. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in fairly good condition and would benefit from cleaning, restoration and revarnishing including delining and relining the canvas, and the removal and replacement of any previous restoration.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Painted in 1904 while Canals was living and working in a studio at the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre, this animated painting shows a wonderfully elegant array of ladies dressed up for the great social occasion of the bullfight, in manola dress with their black and white mantillas. As part of a typical artistic device, used by Renoir, Manet, and Goya before them, the spectators become the spectacle, like actors on a stage. Like the theatre, the bull ring offered a wonderful opportunity for the audience - especially the ladies - to show off their finery, and became almost as much an occasion for observing one another as it was to follow the performance.

The two central ladies leaning on the balustrade were Fernande Olivier and Benedetta ('Bianco') Coletti. Fernande was muse and model to the Catalan painter Joaquín Sunyer, but she famously left him for Picasso when the latter arrived at the Bateau Lavoir in 1904. The Italian-born Benedetta became Canal's lover and later his wife. At the beginning of her relationship with Picasso, Fernande was living with Canals and Bianco, and the pose of the central figures in the present work is clearly borrowed directly from a 1904 photograph of the two in Canals’ studio (fig. 1).

Both women worked as professional models - Fernande for François Sicard and Fernand Cormon, and Benedetta for Bartholomé and Degas, as well as sitting for the 'band catalan' of which Canals, Picasso and Sunyer were a part. Sunyer, who had moved out of the Bateau Lavoir by the time the present work was executed, had also painted Fernande and Benedetta together, not at a bullfight but among the audience at the Cirque Medrano. When Picasso painted a portrait of Benedetta the following year (fig. 2), he carried on Canals’ Spanish theme by having her pose for him wearing a mantilla.