Old Masters and Collecting in Barcelona in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

This presentation offers a brief overview of the picture collections brought together in Catalonia in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, mention will also be made of two outstanding predecessors. The older of the two is the collection of Josep Elies (1690-1779) of Moià, who served as organist in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid. In Madrid, Elies formed a collection of local baroque paintings that he later bequeathed to the parish of Moià. The bequest, however, suffered severe losses during the Peninsular War and the Carlist Wars. The other important predecessor was formed by Ramon Iglesias (c. 1820). Iglesias was canon of the monastery of Santa Anna in Barcelona, Ramon Iglesias (+1820). According to Jaume Villanueva, his collection included more than a hundred Italian and Spanish paintings, which went to the monastery of Montserrat to improve its decoration after it was sacked by French troops. Today, only a small part of this collection survives.
The other three collections that follow a similar model of “classics gallery”, aimed at mimicking the habits of the aristocracy, are the collections of Josep Carreras d’Argerich (+1862), Pere Gil i Babot (1778-1853), and Sebastià-Anton Pascual i Inglada (1807-1872). The collections of Carreras and Pascual received wide praise in their day and were described by Andreu Avelí Pi i Arimon in 1854 in his well-known book Barcelona Antigua y Moderna, while Gil’s collection received recognition and praise in 1917 when his grandson Leopold Gil i Llopart lent it to the Museum of Barcelona, which purchased the better part of the collection many years later. To publicise his collection, Carreras printed a leaflet in 1849 and it appears that the works, which are now dispersed, were highly eclectic in nature, featuring pieces that were certainly purchased in the local market. Gil’s collection is the most widely known. It contained works of great quality, all of them purchased in the Madrid market according to the highest standards. This was possible because Gil served in several legislatures. The Pascual collection contains the greatest number of works. Based on a copy of the complete inventory, it is known to have possessed 1,256 paintings in all. Unfortunately, no image remains of the great hall with overhead lighting in which the finest pieces of the collection hung on display. Sadly, inheritance and selling have now dispersed its contents. The publication of the inventory—now under study—will enable us more fully to assess the importance of this unique collection.