Work on deposit at the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia

Zuloaga’s contact with international art movements was instrumental in the decisive role he played within the generation of artists who modernised Spanish art during the changeover from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Acknowledged for his creation of a Spanish iconography in the context of the 1898 crisis, and for the popularisation outside Spain of a visual imagery associated with the so-called Black Legend, the painter was an active participant in the renewal of the visual arts in Europe.

Such was his popularity as a portraitist throughout his career that Zuloaga occasionally had to turn down commissions. This meant that he was able to select those he was truly interested it and allowed him to set aside the superfluous and concentrate on the psychology of the sitters, as is the case of this work.

The piece is a study for a larger canvas of the same title in which the figure appears in a three-quarter view, with a landscape in the background and the same expression, but wearing a bowtie and thick tortoiseshell glasses. In addition, Zuloaga did another study of this character with bowtie but without glasses.

The pharmacist, who probably attracted the interest of the artist for the strength and eloquence of his marked facial features, appears in full-face view in this study, looking at the spectator, and wears a brown cape, with his white shirt open, a form of dress more similar to that of the popular types that he produced in his paintings from Segovia, where we can appreciate the influence of the painting of Ribera.

Despite the apparent chromatic austerity, the hues are powerful both in the bluish-green background, which evinces his knowledge of French painting, and in some yellow and purple strokes in the kerchief. The brushwork is ample and thick, applied in vigorous strokes, reinforcing the impression of strength that the figure conveys.