Lot Essay
Vicente Palmaroli y Gonzáles began his artistic training under his father Cayetano Palmaroli, a painter and lithographer. After graduating from the Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid, he won a grant to study in Rome in 1857. His subject matter ranged from history painting to portraits but it was his genre scenes that were most praised by the public. By 1882, he was serving as the director of the Spanish Academy in Rome. In the present work, Palmaroli, inspired no doubt by the anceint world, depicts two classical figures. He possessed a great sensitivity to rendering the human figure and has carefully considered the way the drapery of their togas fall on the body of the man and woman.