Attributed to Ramón Bayeu Subías (1744-1793)
Bridge over the Manzanares River Canal (Madrid)

Bridge over the Manzanares River Canal (Madrid)
Oil on canvas. Size: 37 x 78 cm (support); 49 x 90 cm (frame).

In 1784 the painter Francisco Bayeu y Subías (1734-1795) directed the royal commission to conceive and carry out the sketches and cartons in painting that recreate costumbrist matters located in the town of Madrid and its surroundings. The purpose was to weave the corresponding large tapestries that would decorate, as they do today, different rooms in royal palaces in Madrid. The magnitude of the commission obliged Francisco to rely on a team of collaborating artists, among whom was the painter and his brother Ramón Bayeu Subías (1744-1793).

The number and variety of the subjects to be composed and executed established a work team where the new compositional proposals would circulate fluently. The painting that concerns us here shows a thought to undertake one of the main subjects of this series, the Bridge over the Canal of the Manzanares River, a tapestry destined for the so-called Prince of Asturias Room located in the Palace of El Pardo (Madrid, see image 16: © Archivo Moreno, 03330_C). At present, the dining room of the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial (Madrid) holds the great tapestry where this subject is shown together with others of this series in the same textile (see image 17: © Archivo Moreno, VN-22738).

The final sketch was signed by Francisco Bayeu (Madrid, © Museo Nacional del Prado, cat. P000605) whose similarity with the painting to be auctioned is direct (see image 18). The more correct technique in the drawing with impasto in the oils of Francisco's definitive canvas, contrasts with the undone mode, and sometimes certain imperfections in the stroke that, in our opinion, point to Ramón as the possible author of this thought, who also made the subsequent definitive cardboard. The measurements between the two small paintings differ, 36 x 95 cm in the sketch signed by Francisco, as opposed to 37 x 78 cm in the one exhibited here, a difference in the widths forced by the dimensions for his later cardboard and tapestry. Without losing the definitive subject, that bridge that existed over the Madrid canal, the different variations both in the detailed elements that make up both works and in the colors used (horses, postures, guitars...), we believe that they are signs that we are faced with different proposals for the same purpose, made by both brothers working as a team.

This unpublished canvas, never previously published or exhibited in exhibition or trade, must respond to a chronology strictly prior to 1784, date considered until today to date the sketch of Francisco Bayeu.

Reference bibliography:

CATÁLOGO 1990

CATÁLOGO DE LAS PINTURAS. MUSEO MUNICIPAL DE MADRID. Madrid, Museo Municipal, 1990, pp. 111-112.

MADRID 1992

MADRID PINTADO. LA IMAGEN DE MADRID A TRAVÉS DE LA PINTURA. Dirección científica a cargo de Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez; varios autores. Madrid, Museo Municipal, de octubre-1992 a enero-1993, pp. 127-129.

MARTÍNEZ IBÁÑEZ 1988

Martínez Ibáñez, M.ª Antonia: PINTURA MADRILEÑA DE ANTONIO CARNICERO. En "Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños", t. XXV, Madrid, 1988, p. 69, fig. 3.

MATILLA TASCÓN 1960

Matilla Tascón, Antonio: DOCUMENTOS DEL ARCHIVO DEL MINISTERIO DE HACIENDA, RELATIVOS A PINTORES DE CÁMARA Y DE LAS FÁBRICAS DE TAPICES Y PORCELANA. SIGLO XVIII. En "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos", Madrid, enero-junio de 1960, t. LXVIII-1, pp. 199, 222 (doc. 77) y 224 (doc. 85).

MORALES 1979

Morales y Marín, José Luis: LOS BAYEU. Caja de Ahorros de Zaragoza, Aragón y Rioja. Zaragoza, 1979, p. 74, n.º 66 y p. 196, doc. n.º 33.

SAMBRICIO 1955

Sambricio, Valentín de: FRANCISCO BAYEU. CSIC. Madrid, 1955, p. 39, n.º 34, lám. 34.

Measurement:	78 x 37 cm
Measurement with frame:	90 x 49 cm