Oil on canvas, 27 x 51 ¼ in. (68.6 x 130.2 cm). Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas.
The Southern Methodist University’s Website announced today that The Meadows Museum has acquired Beach at Portici, the last painting of famed Spanish artist Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874).
This large-scale, unfinished work depicts the carefree atmosphere of a bbeautiful summer day at the beach, demonstrating Fortuny’s hallmark ability to capture light in paint.
Fortuny was an especially popular artist with 19th-century American collectors and audiences, as revealed by the American provenance of this work. Indeed, it was featured prominently in the American Pavilion’s “Loan Collection of Foreign Masterpieces Owned in the United States” at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, one of the most important international exhibitions of the 19th century.
Beach at Portici will be on view at the Meadows Museum beginning January 19, 2018. From June 24 through September 23, it will be the subject of a focused exhibition, At the Beach: Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and William Merritt Chase.
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