Matched Pair Original Plein-Air Watercolors, Carlos Sánchez, Madrid 1961 — Arco De Cuchilleros & Church Street Scene, Signed

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Offered here is a matched pair of original plein-air watercolors by Carlos Sánchez, executed on-site in Madrid in 1961 and … Read more Offered here is a matched pair of original plein-air watercolors by Carlos Sánchez, executed on-site in Madrid in 1961 and signed by the artist on the face of each work — Madrid. 61. / C. Sánchez — in his characteristic brush hand, underlined.
Sánchez was a Madrid-based plein-air watercolorist who worked the streets, plazas, and historic quarters of Spain in the mid-twentieth century, painting directly from observation rather than from studio reference. The discipline shows. These are not tourist souvenirs rendered from postcards. They are field documents — the result of an artist standing in place, reading light and shadow in real time, and committing what he saw to paper with the confidence that comes from long practice.
The first work depicts the Arco de Cuchilleros, the southwest arch entrance to Madrid's Plaza Mayor — one of the ten original archways framing the square since its completion in 1619. The composition captures the arch from street level, the building mass rising above it, laundry on upper balconies, figures and a period automobile populating the foreground. The Las Cuevas tavern sign is legible on the left façade. A pencil inscription on the verso — in a second hand, consistent with period dealer or curatorial practice — identifies the subject: Arco de Cuchilleros. The second work depicts a narrow street in Madrid's old quarter, anchored by a small church with a gabled façade and cross, flanked by balconied residential buildings with the characteristic ochre masonry and teal shutters of the neighborhood. Period figures — women in skirts, a man on a bicycle — animate the street.
Executed in watercolor with pen-and-wash ink line work on a warm-toned, textured paper, both pieces share a cohesive palette: warm ochre and sienna for the masonry, teal-green for shutters and awnings, deep terracotta accents, loose blue sky washes. They are visually inseparable as a pair — same hand, same year, same city, same format, same palette — and were almost certainly conceived and executed within the same working period.
Condition is consistent with sixty-plus years of age: the paper has developed a natural warm patina, the watercolor remains saturated and unfaded, and there are no tears, losses, or restoration visible to examination.
For the designer: This pair installs as a cohesive statement — two windows into the same city, the same moment, the same eye. The palette travels easily with warm neutrals, terracotta, aged brass, and deep greens. They work as a horizontal pairing above a console or sofa, or stacked vertically in a tighter space. The subject matter carries enough specificity to reward a viewer who knows Madrid and enough visual weight to hold a wall for someone who doesn't.
What you are acquiring is documented, signed, original mid-century work by a named artist — not a reproduction, not a print, not an attribution. The hand is consistent. The provenance is on the face of each piece. See less