Salvador Mayol

SALVADOR MAYOL (Barcelona, 1765 - 1834).
"Havanese man smoking a pipe".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
With label of the Sala Parés on the back.
Measurements: 50 x 43 cm; 63 x 57 cm (frame).

Salvador Mayol was formed in the School of Fine Arts of Barcelona, where later he would exercise as professor, there he had as professor Joseph Flaugier, French painter established in Barcelona, of neoclassical convictions. He enjoyed, in his native city, considerable prestige as a portrait painter. During the Bourbon occupation he moved to Mallorca, where he continued to devote himself to painting and gathered around him a considerable group of disciples. At the end of the war he returned to Barcelona, where he cultivated genre painting (historical, religious and biblical), portraiture and drawing. In 1820 he offered to the Diputació de Barcelona the painting Alegoría de la Constitución del 1820, which was very celebrated by the local critics. He participated in the Llotja Exhibition of 1826, with the works El descenso de la cruz and Baile de Boleras. In 1829 he entered the Royal Academy of San Fernando. Throughout his career he worked in various genres, such as mythological, religious, portrait and genre painting, but he was especially known and appreciated for the latter two. Many of Mayol's works are kept in the Museum of Lluc (Mallorca), the Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona, the Library-Museum Víctor Balaguer (Vilanova y la Geltrú), the Goya Museum of Castres (France), the Museum of History of the city of Barcelona, the Academy of Belles Arts of Sant Jordi and private collections.