“A very happy day” and “the end to the process of a year of work.” Gretel Piquer, historian, also highlighted that not only does this period of almost twelve months of study around the two paintings of “La merienda” by Evaristo Valle close, but it also seals a period of 120 years, with which the two works by the Asturian painter are found again. The Evaristo Valle Museum inaugurated the exhibition “The Two Snacks”, which includes the canvas “Le goûter”, painted in 1905 and exhibited at the Society of Fine Arts of Paris; and also the work painted two years later, already in Gijón, with a new version, which is currently preserved in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias.
“For many years it was thought that this second painting was repainted over the first. But the figures change, the number is reduced, and there is a different landscape and format,” commented Piquer, at the launch of an exhibition that accompanies other drawings, paintings and documents that recount Evaristo Valle’s passage through Normandy, and which can be seen until April 20 in the Gijón artistic facility.
The appearance of that original painting, which was known from photographs in the Valle archive, arose after a contact from a French family, through which it had passed through several generations, requesting more information, before depositing the work in the Evaristo Museum. Valle, where it is now part of his collection. “If a foreign family keeps it for so many decades, I understand that they have an emotional connection,” Piquer commented. “Someday we will know who those people were to whom Valle gave that painting and why,” he stressed.
With the two works located together in the same space, Piquer delved into some of the aspects that distinguish them. From the fact that six people appear in one and seven in another, to some details that reflect the French and Asturian atmosphere. “In the original the style is more expressive and crude. And when he returned to Gijón Valle he painted it again, but with a more realistic and naturalistic one, to the taste of the bourgeoisie of the time. Because the original was not to the taste of the years 40 in Spain,” Piquer explained.
The local nod is also reflected with the presence of the sea among the landscape, or a church, which, as explained by Guillermo Basagoiti, director of the museum, can reflect that of Santiago in the Carreño town of Albandi. But also in some features of the characters or elements that appear, such as apples or bottles of wine or cider, according to the paintings, as specified by Piquer.
That “The two snacks” are now together in Gijón is “a gift from the Three Kings,” said Pablo Basogoiti, director of communication at the museum. Because there are barely two years of separation between both works, and one of them is more than 100 years old, it is found for the first time in Asturias, with an interesting and enigmatic story behind it, about how the work ended up in Normandy and was preserved.
Subscribe to continue reading
