The Cafe of the Swallows
Marià Fortuny, 1868
For now, just to look at
The photograph we have of this work is not sharp enough to print at the quality we want, so we are not selling it for now. We are looking for a better one.
About the work
- Artist
- Marià Fortuny
- Date
- 1868
- Reference
- XDV-3129
What the museum label doesn't tell you
Look up before the figures pull you in: a row of swallows perched on a wire cuts clean across the composition, almost lost against the stone. They are what gives this work its name -Fortuny called it 'The Cafe of the Swallows'- yet the eye goes straight to the man with the tray, the elders on the carpet, the carved columns. The birds end up as background flourish, a flick of the brush. But if the painter chose that title over any other, something about that silent row watching from above mattered to him. Which do you notice first, the swallows or the men?
