Joaquín Mir

Puig y Roig Collection, Barcelona
Sala Parés, Barcelona
Purchased from the above by the present owner in 1998

Possibly Barcelona, Galeries Laietanes, 1923

Enric Jardí, Joaquim Mir, Barcelona, 1989, p. 280, no. 166, listed; p. 155, no. 166, illustrated

Original canvas. There are no signs of retouching visible under ultraviolet light. Apart from some light surface dirt, which would be removed with a light professional clean, the work is in very good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Caldes de Montbui is a small town north of Barcelona famed for its thermal waters, the surrounding hills providing a picturesque subject for artists. The present view is of the Pascol estate with its eleventh-century chapel visible through the trees on the left.

Praised by the critics as the new great painter of the Catalan landscape, Joaquín Mir found endless inspiration in Tarragona and its environs. His marriage to María Estalella took him to Vilanova i la Geltrú in 1922, where he put his nomadic life behind him and for the first time found a real home. The town became the point of departure for his many painting trips to Calafell, San Pere de Ribes, la Alforja, Canyelles, and Caldes de Montbui.

Mir's Catalan works are more subtle both in composition and in their palette than his almost fantastical Mallorcan pictures of 1899-1904, and are suffused with warm ochre, pink, and saffron shades. Mir's canvases of this period marked a definite return to spatial representation and exude a feeling of calm, perhaps a reflection of his new-found sense of stability and well-being.