Spanish school; second half of the 19th century.

Spanish school; second half of the 19th century.
"The Vicarage".
Oil on canvas.
It has craquelure, faults and repainting on the pictorial surface.
It has slight faults in the frame.
Size: 41 x 61 cm; 49,5 x 69,5 cm (frame).
This work largely follows the aesthetics and subject matter of the painting "The Vicarage", painted in 1870 by Mariano Fortuny, an oil on canvas measuring 60 x 94 cm, currently conserved in the MNAC in Barcelona. Fortuny's work is a magnificent example of the so-called casacone painting, characterised by the meticulousness of the description and the sensitivity of the light. "The Vicarage" was Fortuny's masterpiece, which the painter matured after his marriage on 27 November 1867. Exhibited in Paris in 1870, the painting caused a real stir and received flattering criticism from Teophile Gautier and Regnault; however, the author of this copy was not interested in these aspects but in the expressiveness of the composition itself, characterised by an expressive interplay of full and empty spaces and by a scenographic amplitude.
This type of scenes, with a gallant and hedonistic theme, cheerful and colourful, worked with a precious and descriptive workmanship, were frequent during the second half of the 19th century, within the context of historicism, and extended throughout the 20th century. They belong to the genre known as "de casacones" in Spain and "tableautin" in France, characterised by works inspired by an idealised past, often from the 17th and 18th centuries, normally of small or medium format and intended for an eminently bourgeois clientele.