Mariano Fortuny's Collections

"Fortuny's Studio" by Ricardo de Madrazo

"The letters of Mariano Fortuny show him to us after his return to Italy,  working at his painting and always devoting his idle moments to his passion for objects of art. Having started in a relatively modest manner, Fortuny’s collecting activities expanded in the 1860s, particularly after he began to meet antique dealers, connoisseurs and collectors. During his time in Andalusia his innate taste and criteria led him to acquire Hispano-Moresque works of enormous quality.

Fortuny was attracted to a wide range of objects, particularly arms, ceramics, textiles, ivories, furniture and glass. A truly outstanding area is Islamic art, the core of his collection, while he also possessed excellent examples of the Italian and Spanish decorative arts as well as Japanese textiles, screens and prints. Fortuny’s great technical skills allowed him to work as a restorer and he even made several pieces that look antique.

"His vast studio, where he had arranged with exquisite taste, his splendid stuffs, his faiences with reflections of gold, his ancient arms, and a thousand other curious objects, made a veritable marvel of decoration, and it took rank among the sights of Rome, too often even it drew upon him troublesome visits. His installation in the adjoining villa was almost princely. He was flattered by everybody, notwithstanding that he was, as he said, 'worried without knowing why.' Was it a presentiment?"

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Life of Fortuny with His Works and Correspondence" by Charles Davillier, 1885.)