80 - RICARD MARTÍ AGUILÓ (Barcelona, 1868–1936).

RICARD MARTÍ AGUILÓ (Barcelona, 1868–1936). Set of three landscapes: “Boats at Cadaqués,” “Landscape,” and “Beach and Rock,” one of which is dated 1909. Oil on panel. The first is signed “R.M.” The second is signed and inscribed in the lower left corner. They show minor signs of wear consistent with their age. Provenance: Family bequest of Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló. An art and heritage collection whose origins lie in the legacy of the Catalan painters Ramon Martí Alsina (1826–1894), a key figure in 19th-century Catalan realism, and his son Ricard Martí Aguiló (1857–1935). Passed down and enriched over successive generations, the collection brings together works from the original estates of both artists, along with new acquisitions made by their descendants. They maintained a special dedication to the preservation and restoration of the family legacy, acquiring works by the painters themselves as they came onto the market and progressively expanding the collection with paintings, sculptures, archaeological pieces, and other objects of artistic and historical interest. The collection includes three small landscapes that showcase the most direct and spontaneous side of Ricard Martí Aguiló, closely linked to the observation of nature. The three panels are executed with loose, highly visible brushstrokes that prioritize the capture of light, atmosphere, and texture over a meticulous depiction of the subject. In *Barques a Cadaqués*, the boats and harbor structures are rendered through a rich combination of blues, greens, pinks, and earth tones, applied with remarkable freedom. The second landscape presents a luminous Mediterranean vision, dominated by pine forests and a sky filled with large clouds, while *Platja i roca* focuses attention on the materiality of the coastline, rendering the rock formations through impasto and rapid chromatic variations. The small format and the immediacy of the execution lend the three works the character of sketches made in front of the subject. Ricardo Martí Aguiló was a Catalan painter associated with the Barcelona artistic tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The son of the renowned Ramón Martí Alsina, one of the key figures of Catalan realism, he grew up in a family environment closely tied to painting, a circumstance that had a decisive influence on his artistic development. His work is characterized by a focus on drawing, an interest in naturalistic representation, and a marked decorative sensibility, developed within a context of aesthetic renewal in which the final manifestations of academicism coexisted with Modernism. His pictorial language combines the nineteenth-century realist tradition with greater freedom in the treatment of color and composition, reflecting the artistic tastes of Catalan society at the turn of the century.