Although it was widely believed that this work represented the gardens of Aranjuez, the research done by Father Laplana for the publication of the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work determined that it was in fact one of the four views painted by Rusiñol of the gardens known as Jardín de Martí Codolar, in Horta, a town near Barcelona, where he worked in 1925, 1927 and 1930. The gardens are named after Lluis Martí i Codolar, a banker who built an agricultural farm and gardens in this town.

This work (from autumn 1927, when he painted four views of the garden) reveals a marked sense of symmetry, accentuated by the geometry of the box hedges, and a sense of spatial vastness achieved by cutting off the treetops at the back, whose chromatic monotony is broken with the brown-leaf tree that marks the central axis of the composition.

The characteristic melancholy of the gardens painted by this artist is accentuated here by the cool hues and the effect of the tall front of Monterey cypress trees that occupies the top edge of the canvas. The broken brushwork, rather than allowing the minute representation of the different plant species, conveys a harmonious impression of the whole.

The green tones are depicted with a wide range of colour, from the yellower tones of the boxwood in the back, whose horizontal surfaces are hit by the light of the sun, to the darker hues of the treetops at the centre. The leaves on the ground, the mauve colour with purple streaks of the latter, the arrangement of the sculptures inside the arbour, and the tall trees show the characteristic elegance of the artist’s production.

The canvas comes from Sala Parés in Barcelona, where it had been exhibited in 1928 and where it returned in December 1966, as recorded in a label on the back.