Joaquín Agrasot

JOAQUIN AGRASOT (Orihuela, Alicante, 1837 - Valencia, 1919).
"Playing cards".
Oil on board.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 90 x 53 cm; 123 x 86 cm (frame).
The portraits and genre scenes were very popular among the Spanish bourgeois clientele of the 19th century, within a context still inherited from romanticism, which sought in the idealized recreation of the past an escape from everyday reality. Many painters of the time worked along these lines, seeking to capture scenes of the past with the greatest possible verism, recreated with precise attention to detail, worked with a language of academic roots or, as in the case of this panel, with a distinctly modern language, especially sensitive to light and atmosphere. This type of scenes starring everyday characters are framed within the genre of genre painting, scenes worked with a special narrative and descriptive eagerness, which in Spain will have as main formal reference Velázquez and his contemporaries.
Agrasot began his training in his native Orihuela, where he was granted a pension from the Diputación de Alicante to study at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valencia. A disciple there of Francisco Martínez Yago, in his early years he won awards such as the gold medal at the Provincial Exhibition of Alicante in 1860. In 1863 he was granted a new pension, this time to travel to Rome, where he came into contact with Rosales, Casado del Alisal and Fortuny. With the latter he established close ties of friendship, and his painting was deeply influenced by the style of the Catalan painter. He periodically sent canvases to the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, in which he obtained third medal in 1864 and second in 1867. Agrasot remained in Italy until 1875; after Fortuny's death he returned to Spain, already a painter of recognized prestige, was a member of the Academies of San Carlos and San Fernando, and participated as a juror in several artistic exhibitions. In 1886 he received the art medal at the Universal Exposition of Philadelphia, and in 1888 the second medal at the International Exposition of Barcelona. Agrasot's style is framed within realism, being especially interested in genre themes and regional costumbrismo. However, he also worked on nudes, oriental themes and portraits. He is represented in the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia, the MUBAG in Gravina (Alicante) and the Academy of San Carlos in Valencia.