DIEGO RIVERA

Details
DIEGO RIVERA

Calle de Vizcaya

signed D. M. Rivera lower right--oil on panel
10¾ x 7in. (27.5 x 17.7cm.)

Painted in 1908
Provenance
Paul and Henriette Van de Velde, Belgium
Suzanne Luchsinger, San Francisco
Robert and Irma Vega de Bijou, San Francisco
Exhibited
Mexico City, Museo Estudio Diego Rivera, El Joven e Inquieto Diego Maria Rivera (1907-1910) (not illustrated)

Lot Essay

This painting is sold with a certificate of authentication from Ramon Favela, dated August 10, 1991, and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by Dr. Favela.

Although this small street scene was possibly painted in the summer of 1907 when Rivera was painting in the picturesque Vizcayan seacoast fishing village of Lequeito, its style corresponds more closely to his 1908 works. It was possibly painted outdors as a study for one of Rivera's large street scenes from this village, for example the work titled La Casona (1907)

In 1907 Rivera had been granted a monthly pension to continue his studies in Spain and Frnace by the Governor of the State of Veracruz, Don Teodoro Dehesa. In the summer of 1907, he travelled north from Madrid to the Spanish coastal province of Vizcaya and painted in addition to several large-scale studio works another small oil study on a similar beechwood panel titled Vizcayan Seascape (1908). Both this Calle de Vizcaya and Vizcayan Seascape are rare examples of signed studies, both possible open-air studies, by Rivera in his first year in Europe. The are very few in existence from his entire European period (1907-1921) and these are the only known examples from his first two years there.

Dr. Ramon Favela, Santa Barbara