VIRGILIO PASQUALE (Melfi, 1885-Sarno, 1953).
"Tribute to the city of Barcelona", Barletta, Italy.
Pastel on paper.
Signed and located in the lower left corner.
Size: 89 x 123 cm; 92 x 125 cm (frame).
The city of Barcelona shines with force in this brilliant composition ascribed to the modernist school. There are many iconographic elements that allow us to identify it as a tribute to the city of Barcelona, starting with the waterfall of the park of the Citadel, crowned with the chariot of the Aurora, represented in the lower part of the painting; the first Barça coat of arms that shines at the feet of a modernist lady, or the representation of the façade of the Sagrada Familia in the left part of the composition. Other elements, such as a bullfight in the ring of a bullring (possibly the Monumental), the interior of a cloister (most probably that of the Cathedral in the Gothic quarter) and one of the chimneys of Barcelona's old textile factories (which still today recall the industrial importance Barcelona enjoyed in the 20th century), corroborate the Barcelona identity of this painting. As a final touch, it is worth mentioning how all the elements mentioned above come together in a large setting with the Mediterranean Sea as a backdrop, with the Columbus monument fading into the background. The clearly modernist clothing of the bourgeois families in the scene, as well as the other elements that make up this particular composition, lead us to think that Virgilio Pasquale (an Italian who lived in Barletta) may have spent some time in Barcelona.