The C is consideredApilpilla is sixnax. of the painter Julio Romero de Torres. The Cordoba artist gave the town of Porcuna (5,900 inhabitants, Jaén) some of his best jewels, especially the frescoes of religious themes that can be visited in the Piedra de la Asunción church. There are five works that have survived for more than a century: the Assumption of the Virgin in the vault of the main altar; the mural of the holy dinner in one of the chapels of the cruise; the sacred family, which is parallel in the other chapel; A valuable oil on the canvas of San Juan Bautista in prayer that during the civil war was believed lost and found in the cameras of the Church. To these works we must join four canvases of the four evangelists, which were not attributed to the Cordoba painter until 2017, thanks to an investigation by historian Juan Miguel Bueno, also author of a book on Julio Romero de Torres.
“The paintings, which are dated in 1908, must be restored as soon as possible, mainly the two murals of the apses, both the holy dinner and the sacred family, which are the most affected by the passage and the avatars of time,” says the mayor of Porcuna, Miguel Moreno. The works, which are owned by the Church, even suffered destruction during the civil war and more recently Rafael Romero, son of the artist, made a defective restoration. The mayor asks for the help of the institutions, mainly from the Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía, which is competent in conservation, for a task that, as indicated, transcends the technical and economic possibilities of the municipality. Nor has he received any response from the Junta de Andalucía so that these paintings declare themselves of cultural interest (BIC). The Andalusian government feimmed that it is a good of ownership of the Diocese of Jaén, although they open to collaborate in the restoration through the line of aid to sacred art.
However, municipal vindication comes from afar. Luis Emilio Vallejo, Doctor of Fine Arts and Municipal Heritage Technician, recalls that in 1998 the urgent performance in the murals was requested due to the cracks appeared. In 2000, the Andalusian Board did restored the central vault and later another project was commissioned to continue the restoration of two other murals very affected by humidity of capillarities, condensations and replencies of 1975.
A report by experts Juan Miguel Bueno and Luis E. Vallejo showed that the wall paintings “have a serious condition for moisture that come from both the soil and the wall support and enclosure of the roof”, something they described as “very serious” because it can cause “irreparable losses in a work of these characteristics.”
One of the worst conditions (and more difficult to recover) took place with the unfortunate restoration that Rafael Romero made in 1975, some chopsticks who altered Jesus’ face at the holy dinner. Vallejo considers urgent the need to protect these unique creations with the highest legal figure, which is his statement as BIC. “Such protection would guarantee a series of protocols that would prevent continuous degradation and irreversible loss of parts or sets of these works.”
The pictorial production of Julio Romero de Torres in Porcuna is not limited to religious works of art. Last October an unpublished work of the Cordoba painter came to light, an oil on table entitled Child portraitdated in 1903 and that remained in the hands of the Gallo family. Experts believe that this painting, like others, was performed by the artist during his stay in Porcuna while working on the murals of the apse of the Church of the Assumption, when he made several portraits of the children of the Gallo family, his hosts during that time.
It is a work that presents the infant with a serious face, rosy cheeks and dressed in a garment adorned with lace, a typical image of the early twentieth century. For the researcher at the University of Seville Jesús Aguilar Díaz, author of this recent discovery, this work confirms the amplitude of the portrait production of Julio Romero de Torres, who worked for the Madrid and Cordoba bourgeoisie, being the woman her main muse. A picture that experts compare with others of similar characteristics of the author itself, such as Andalusian laziness o Sánchez Blessingmarked by its great luminosity and color.
‘Rivalry’ returns to Córdoba
Meanwhile, and as a culmination to the acts of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Julio Romero de Torres, the City of Córdoba has celebrated the return to the city of the painting Rivalryconsidered one of its main paintings, bought for 700,000 euros. This is the artist’s first work (dated in 1925) acquired by the city in the last 25 years, since in 2000 the local town hall bought Grace for 600,000 euros. Rivalry It was exhibited in the Ibero -American exhibition of 1929, where it was acquired by the Argentine doctor Arturo Uriarte. In 1941 he deposited at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Argentina, where he remained until in 2002 Sotheby’s of London auctioned the picture, which was bought by the Prasa Foundation.
The mayor of Córdoba, José María Bellido, has congratulated himself for the return to the municipal heritage of this Cordoba genius. The municipal councilor has assured that with the anniversary acts of the painter’s birth they have “left behind clichés and topics” about the artist. Rivalrywhich can already be contemplated in room VI of the Julio Romero de Torres Museum, among two other great works of the artist such as The small piconera y Gracerepresents two women by playing the attention of a man, symbolized by a Cordoba hat. The models were Margarita Goumoun, Russian Dance, and the French model Asunción Vouet.
The director of the Julio Romero de Torres Museum, Enrique Ortega, has detailed that the work is in a “radiant” state. A painting, said Ortega, which was highly valued by Romero de Torres to the point that in the insurance that was made for the Ibero -American exhibition was much more valued thanThe small piconera.