FEDERICO BELTRÁN MASSÉS | MUSES OF THE GUADALQUIVIR

Private collection, New York

Stair Sainty, London

Purchased from the above by the present owner

Characterised by an atmosphere of languid, decadent sensuality, Muses on the Guadalquivir unites quintessential elements of the artist’s work on a grand scale. Flanked by a gypsy and a nude holding a fan, the central woman dominates the scene, her striking satin dress glowing with an almost metallic sheen in the moonlight. The scene is bathed in a deep blue, Whistlerian palette typical of the artist’s mysterious nocturnes, whether set in Venice or, as here, southern Spain. Seville’s Moorish past – alluded to by the thirteenth-century Torre del Oro and the Giralda – combine the spirit of the Orient with Spanish culture, both recurring sources of inspiration for Beltrán Massés.

Born in Guaira de la Melena, Cuba, where his father was the Spanish military envoy, Beltrán Massés moved to Barcelona in 1899 where he studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes. The artist's iconography reflected the concurrent reaction to modernity embodied in a taste for the elegant and exotic, celebrated by artists such as Ignacio Zuloaga and Julio Romero de Torres. This late Symbolism reintroduced the culture of myths, theatre, and bullfighters - symbols of a decadent society - and employed the use of allegory.

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by M. Antonia Salom de Tord who will be including it in the forthcoming Beltrán Massés's catalogue raisonné (no. 260).