The magician

Vincente March y Marco began his artistic training at the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos in Valencia. He would later travel to Rome. As Elisabetta Maistri notes ‘Spaniards … constructed the image of Rome as a place whose lifestyle was functional to the study and practice of art.’ (‘La común patria de los artistas': the Spanish colony of artists in Rome 1830-1873, Durham, 2023, p. 220). March took up residence at the Palazzo Patrizi on the famous Via Margutta, which by late 1800s had become synonymous with ‘the most recurrent and acclaimed Spanish names’ (op. cit. p. 165).

During the summers, March would travel to Subiaco in the region of Lazio, just outside of Rome. It would be here that March would find the winding side streets and arcaded courtyards that would form the architectural backdrop of his pictures, although they often still appeared distinctly Spanish, as if transposed into the familiar environments of his native Valencia.

March’s paintings represent a conflation of real and imagined characters. While produced during his extended stay in Italy this scene resembles a traditional Spanish venta (inn). A hand painted sign reads ‘VINO DE VALDEPENAS’ and another Spanish inscription above a doorway, advertising lodgings, further suggests that March intended for the scene to be read as unmistakably Spanish.