Fernando Zobel

Acquired directly from the artist

The work is in good condition overall. There is evidence of wear and handling on the edges but painting layers are well-preserved. There is a minor craquelure located on the lower left, near the artist's signature and faint spots of brown media accretions – which are only visible upon close observation. Under ultraviolet light inspection there is no evidence of restoration. Framed.
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Fernando Zobel had always been fascinated by paintings based on paintings and at times engages in visual dialogues with works by Rembrandt, Mantegna, and Rubens, among others. The current work expresses Zobel's interpretation of Turner's "Peace - Burial at Sea".

Discussing his technique on his 1975 version of Mantegna's Triumph, he said, "Nothing would be left of the original and hypothetical triumph but a few echoes of painted fictions and a scattering of imperial words dealing with something else. A kind of vanitas or memento mori."¹

Similarly, there is no visual recognition of Turner's original painting in the present work. Zobel kept only the dramatic sliver of light shining through the smoke columns and the line of the horizon, but they reduced into geometrical structure. Like a whisper and an echo in an alternate universe, the present work illustrates a minimalist aura yet resonates a spiritual presence which is powerful and soulful.

¹Rafael Pérez-Madero, ZOBEL / LA SERIE BLANCA, Ediciones Rayuela, Madrid, 1978, p. 91.