Spanish School, Mediterranean Fishing Village Harbor Coastal Landscape with Boats and Fishermen, 1910s, Oil on Canvas

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This early twentieth-century oil on canvas shows a Mediterranean fishing village at work. Men haul a net across a stone … Read more This early twentieth-century oil on canvas shows a Mediterranean fishing village at work. Men haul a net across a stone quay in the shaded foreground, small masted boats sit beached on the sand, and white and ochre houses press down to the shore beneath plane trees. Villagers talk in the shade while children play among them.

The handling is naturalist and tonal rather than high-keyed, which places it on the quieter side of the Spanish coastal painting that flourished around 1900, when the working ports of Catalonia and Valencia gave painters a ready subject in beached boats and drying nets. We attribute it to that school, probably Catalan or Valencian. It is signed, though we have not identified the hand. The canvas has never been lined and remains on its original keyed stretcher, which carries a penciled inventory number, R 146/5, and the remnant of an old paper label. Fine craquelure runs across the surface, and two small patches on the reverse mark old repairs. See less