Luis Taberner y Montalvo

LUIS TABERNER Y MONTALVO (Madrid, 1844-1900).
"Last purification of Dante in the river Eunoe". Series Scenes from the Divine Comedy, 1895.
Sarga painted in oil without preparation.
It presents slight losses of the pictorial layer and wear in the border.
Measurements: 242 x 400 cm.
This oil painted serge is part of the series Scenes from the Divine Comedy, a set inspired by the famous work of Dante Alighieri and conceived as a model for tapestry. The theme represented comes from canto XXXIII of The Purgatory, where Matilda, following Beatrice's instructions, leads Dante to the waters of the river Eunoe to complete his spiritual purification before entering Paradise. The scene shows the moment when the poet, accompanied by Statius and the seven nymphs, approaches the regenerating waters, symbol of the recovery of the memory of the good and the definitive elevation of the soul. The iconography closely follows the famous engraving made by Gustave Doré in 1867 for his illustrations of The Divine Comedy, especially in the arrangement of the figures and in the solemn and visionary tone of the composition.
The choice of this episode reveals the nineteenth-century interest in the great literary and medieval texts, reinterpreted from a romantic and symbolist sensibility. During the second half of the 19th century, the figure of Dante was recovered throughout Europe as a paradigm of the visionary poet and spiritual journey, and artists like Doré contributed decisively to fix a monumental and dramatic imagery of Dante's work. Taberner is fully inserted in this current. The trajectory of Luis Taberner y Montalvo helps to understand this artistic sensibility. Trained at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, the painter participated actively in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, where he presented works such as El propagandista (The propagandist) in 1871, in addition to attending the Horticultural Exhibition of Madrid in 1881 with Unas orzas (A few daggerboards). Specializing in both genre painting and portraiture, he also cultivated decorative painting, a field in which he stood out for his numerous oil sketches.