Eduardo Pelayo Fernández

EDUARDO PELAYO FERNANDEZ (Cuba, 1850-1901).
"Family portrait".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It has a frame of the late nineteenth century.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 66 x 91 cm; 85 x 110 cm (frame).
Family scene painted by Eduardo Pelayo Fernández that transports us to the domestic intimacy of the Creole bourgeoisie of the XIX century, where the living room becomes a scene of social and cultural identity. The space is carefully arranged: a green carpet covers the floor, while the decoration responds to the nineteenth-century eclectic taste, with worked furniture, heavy draperies and the presence of a piano.
On the right, the girl, seated on a frieze, concentrates the attention of the composition. Her hands hold a leaflet, a gesture that suggests not only the moment of leisure but also the value that the family attaches to artistic training. On the left, the parents, standing next to the piano, observe with a mixture of pride and tenderness, integrating themselves into the scene as spectators and at the same time participants in the cultural life that is cultivated inside the home. The composition seems to narrate a suspended instant, a testimony of daily life. This type of painting, very widespread in the 19th century, responds to a generalized interest in the representation of the intimate space and family values.
A painter of Cuban origin, he lived and painted in Spain. He specialized in watercolor, although he also practiced oil painting. He practiced the genre of manners, landscapes and portraits with a post-impressionist technique of loose and quick brushstrokes, and a rich palette from which he knew how to extract a varied tonal gradation. Paintings of a bucolic and poetic nature, which envelop us with the mist of idealized times.