The ground floor, Maricel Museum

The ground floor of the Maricel Museum constitutes four clearly differentiated sections. The old Gothic chapel of the Hospital of Sant Joan and the adjoining room contain pieces that prefigure the content of the Museum’s collection, including a pair of 10th-century capitals, the 13th-century Maiestas Domini (Christ in Majesty) and the altarpieces of Sant Salvador d’Alzina de Ribelles (Jaume Cabrera, c. 1400) and of Our Lady (14th century) and works by Pedro Orrente, Antoni Almirall, Santiago Rusiñol, Ramon Casas and Pere Jou. Together with the chapel, the belvedere constitutes the most spectacular room with its views out to sea and the three large noucentista-style sculptures (Joan Rebull). The Romanesque chapel room dedicated to St. Bartholomew (14th century) evokes the figure of Dr. Jesús Pérez-Rosales.

The best selection
The long space that leads from the belvedere to the Sert Room is devoted to Realism and figurative art from the between-war and postwar years, with sculptures by Jou, Rebull and Casanovas and paintings by the Villa brothers, Mercader, Ferrer Pino, Artur Carbonell, Sisquella and Pere Pruna. The large sculpture of El Greco, an original work by José Reynes (1898), which was replaced by a copy in 1970 due to its deterioration, is now permanently exhibited at the Museum.

The Sert Room concludes the visit to the Maricel Museum, with the large murals that constitute an allegory of the Great War, painted between 1915 and 1916 in the hope that the allies would be victorious.

Highlights

Maiestas Dominithe Master of Pedret’s circle
first quarter of the 12th century, Parish Church of Santa Maria de Cap d’Aran (Tredós, Vall d’Aran), Catalonia, fresco mural painting transferred to canvas.

This fresco mural painting also has touches of tempera. The painting was removed from the wall and transferred to canvas.

The iconography is based on the Apocalypse of St. John, very characteristic of Romanesque figurative art.

Apocalypse in Greek means ‘revelation’. John ascends to heaven, where he sees the figure of God the father, as depicted in this work: Christ appears sitting on a throne, with the Book in his left hand and his right hand raised in a sign of blessing. As from this moment, the end of the world will be revealed to him.

Altarpiece of Our Ladyanonymous artist from Lleida
last quarter of the 14th century, Church of the Diocese of La Seu d’Urgell, possibly from t Torà del Riubregós (Segarra, Lleida), Catalonia.

This altarpiece has three vertical sections. The central one features Our Lady seated, with two angels with the traditional Calvary which crowns the composition, while the side sections narrate six episodes from the life of Mary.

Of these the first composition, located to the left of the observer, is the announcement of the archangel Gabriel to Mary, and the next, in the right-hand section, depicts Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. In the second section, in which the order of reading is reversed, we contemplate the Birth on one side and the Epiphany on the other.

Finally, the last section narrates the Flight to Egypt and the presentation of Jesus at the temple.

Highlights

Portrait of Charles Deering
Ramon Casas i Carbó, 1914, oil on canvas.

Charles Deering was one of the most important buinessmen in the United States. In 1909 he invited Ramon Casas (Barcelona, ​​1866-1932) to his country to paint portraits of his acquaintances. Upon returning they travelled together to Sitges, and Charles Deering liked it so much that he decided to buy the old hospital to restore it and convert it into his home, which he called Maricel (meaning Sea and Sky).

Between 1910 and 1917, under the artistic supervision of the multifaceted Miquel Utrillo, this monumental complex was built along with his home, where we are now. Another building was also designed to present his art collections, the Maricel Palace, the two buildings being joined together by a bridge over the street.

Portrait of Salvador Robert, ’en Tirano’ ,
Santiago Rusiñol i Prats, c. 1894, Sitges, oil on canvas.

This is a portrait of Salvador Robert, one of the Sitges personalities whom Santiago Rusiñol (Barcelona, 1861-Aranjuez 1931) painted between 1893 and 1895. The common denominator they share is that they were all friends or acquaintances of Rusiñol and that, therefore, the artist painted them for mere pleasure, without being subjected to the pressures entailed in a commissioned work.

Rusiñol used a palette of greys and whites to convey the sitter’s soul, whose gaze is focused pensively on the music score.

Realism and figurative art
Many artists active throughout Noucentisme and the between-war realism periods continued to work after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), impervious to the development of the avant-garde idiom. There was a kind of natural extension of figurative art aesthetics until its founders ceased to be active.

Figurative art lived on, clearly reminiscent of idioms that drew from a variety of sources such as Primitivism, New Objectivity, ongoing landscapism with Mediterranean roots and Decorativism.

Allegory of Sitges
Pere Jou and Francisco, 1954, Sitges, sculpted stone.

This sculpture by Pere Jou i Francisco (Barcelona, 1891 – Sitges, 1964) depicts a half-kneeling woman holding a bunch of malvasia grapes; with her right hand she moves it towards her face and with the left helps to hold it up straight.

The presence of the grape is a tribute to Sitges and malvasia vine. The sensuality of the naked body enhances that of the fruit and refers to the the atmosphere of Sitges, so conducive to the enjoyment of life.

El Greco
Josep Reynés Gurguí, 1898, stone

In 1896 Santiago Rusiñol launched a fundraising campaign in order to build the first public monument to the famous painter Doménikos Theotokópulous, El Greco, in Sitges.

The stone sculptureby Barcelona sculptor Josep Reynés Gurguí (Barcelona, ​​1850-1926), financed by popular subscription, was unveiled on 25 August 1898.

This initiative reflects the importance of El Greco for artists like Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Pichot, as well as for intellectual figures of the time, who saw the Greek painter as a free spirit and personification of the modern artist.

Collector, Dr. Jesús Pérez-Rosales
Jesús Pérez-Rosales (Manila, 1896 – Barcelona, 1989) was the son of the last Spanish Mayor of the capital of the Philippine Islands. He studied medicine in Barcelona (1915-1920) and specialised in gynaecology and obstetrics, disciplines that he practised until his retirement. At an early age he began to acquire paintings and objects, mainly from the medieval period until the 19th century, as well as pre-Columbian and oriental art, as he never forgot his origins.

Over the years he acquired major Romanesque and Gothic paintings, an unusual practice among private collectors taking into account that the works in question are characterised by high quality and large formats. Thanks to these works, his art collection became one of the most important in the country. The curiosity and interest of this collector took different paths. Pérez-Rosales began his collection at a time when art collecting in Catalonia was at the height of its golden age. Rivalry when it came to acquiring high-quality works of art was fierce. Under such circumstances, he nonetheless managed to form a collection of important works representative of different periods and geographical origins.

Dr. Jesús Pérez-Rosales gave his collection to the Barcelona Provincial Council in 1969 with the aim of creating the Maricel de Mar Museum, which opened its doors the following year with an exhibition highly representative of his collections.

His work and his prestige were recognized by the authorities and various sectors linked to artistic activities; he was named an honorary member of the Barcelona Provincial Council (1976) “by virtue of the relevant merits accrued by his artistic and cultural donations to this corporation” and correspondent in Sitges of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of St. George (1981) among other awards .The merit of his collection was also recognized in Sitges. He was appointed honorary member of Club Nàutic (1972); Adoptive Son of the City (1974), won the Prize Trinitat Catasús (1976) and square was dedicated to him and he contributed several sculptures.

The model of collector that Pérez-Rosales had in mind was, probably, Frederic Mares (Portbou 1893 – Barcelona, ​​1991).Beyond his dedication to sculpture, Marés treasured a very important collection of ancient art, especially sculpture, but also applied arts. Artist and academic, the fact of linking very soon (1944) his art collection to the City Council of Barcelona and convert it into a museum, granted him the condition of a very special collector with a capacity of intervention in the museum and in other collections, as the old book collection that he donated to Biblioteca de Catalunya.While the professional dedication of Pérez Rosales and his family fortune allowed him to combine medicine and the collection of art, the importance and the future of the collection must provoked logical questions about continuity and conservation. The Marés model, enjoying honors and his own museum and bequeathing his collection to the City Council, and the good relations of Pérez-Rosales with the Provincial Government played a determinant role in the decision to bequeath his collection to the provincial corporation in 1968. It was decided to locate the collection at the section of the Maricel who had been the residence of Charles Deering, at the old Hospital of Sant Joan, this became a second model for Pérez Rosales as an aesthetic model, if well away from the spirit of Noucentisme of Miquel Utrillo.

Jesús Pérez-Rosales died in Barcelona in 1989.One of the many obituaries portrayed him in a very precise manner, great doctor, very good collector… philanthropist covering many artistic disciplines and a paradigm of romantic and multifaceted personality.”

Origins and content of Pérez-Rosales Collection
The most popular providers of Pérez-Rosales were two antiquarians: Josep Bardolet i Soler (1891-1985) and Baldomero Falgueras and Carreras (1915-2006). The 3.603 registered works of the Pérez-Rosales collection cover a wide range with a large presence of painting, sculpture, drawing and furniture, pre-Columbian archeology, Oriental art, musical instruments, textiles, liturgical objects, folk crafts and all kinds of objects of applied art.

Ancient Art is the most important part of the Pérez-Rosales Collection, and within this section we must stress the importance of Romanesque and Gothic, mainly sculpture and painting over tables and frescoes. Baroque works present a very interesting and valuable collection of sculptures and carvings, as well as painting, highlighting various works by Juan de Arellano floral.with floral motifs. There are interesting and varied pieces of furniture from the eighteenth and nineteenth belonging to the “Fernandino” and “Isabelino” styles, and also works by Fortuny, Vicente Lopez, Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, José Roldán Martínez, Lluís Masriera or Tomàs Moragas.

Popular arts are represented by a set of excellent and abundant Catalan and Valencian ceramics, mainly from the fifteenth century in various formats: tiles, panels, objects and kitchen utensils, etc. An added value of this collection is that it is complementary to that contained in the Cau Ferrat Museum.

The collection of pre-Columbian art was received by Pérez-Rosales between 1975 and 1989 largely from Guatemala and comprises a total of 232 pieces and objects; its catalog (2001) is the only completed and published one of the entire donation. Another markedly different section is the set of oriental art objects from the Philippines, China and Japan made up of weapons, mostly Filipino, Japanese and Chinese paintings and prints and polychrome and enameled Hong Kong ceramics.

Modern Art is outstanding due to the variety of works in painting and sculpture. Segundo Matilla, Darius Vilàs or Gustavo de Maeztu are some of the most prominent authors in the field of painting. The collection is rich in modern sculpture, with authors from Ramon Amadeu and Agapit Vallmitjana to sculptors from “Modernisme” and “Noucentisme” as Enric Clarasó Henry J. Llimona (one of the copies of Desconsol), Pau Gargallo, Josep Clarà, and Joan. Rebull and J. Cañas, among others.

The paintings of Josep M. Sert allegorical to the Great War 1914-1918 deserve a special mention. . They were painted specifically for the lobby of the residence of Charles Deering in 1915-1916 in six large canvases adapted to the monumental walls of the ground floor of the large Sant Miquel Manor. All six paintings traveled to the United States in 1921 when Deering moved his residence and art collection and from there travelled to various destinations. Pérez-Rosales bought them to replace them to their original position, so the Maricel Museum with the Pérez-Rosales collection was inaugurated with the paintings back to its original location.

As for prints, there are seventy-six pieces from the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Those are works from Hans Baldung, Pasqual Pere Moles, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Blas Ametller, Mignard, F. Fonterasso, F. Le Moine and Fortuny. The books, most from medical subjecst, are twenty-two and date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The personal documentation of Pérez-Rosales corresponds to his professional activity and honors and distinctions that he received.

The Pérez-Rosales Collection at the Maricel Museum
The idea of ​​creating a museum with the Pérez-Rosales art collection came himself, probably inspired by the example of Frederic Marés and a firm will to avoid the dispersion of the collection. He maintained conversations with the then President of the Provincial Council, the Marquis of Castell-Florite, who accepted it. The decision to accept the offer of Pérez-Rosales was taken in plenary session of 28 June 1968.

The agreement to purchase the building Maricel corresponding to the former residence of Deering was taken on January 29, 1969. The management of the Museum was carried out directly from the Barcelona Provincial Council.

The conditioning of the building was carried out by the Head of Conservation of Monuments of the provincial council, Camil Pallàs, who proceeded to transform the site in favor of the aesthetic criteria and taste of Pérez-Rosales, thinking in the placement of concrete works and visual sensationalism rather than in terms of the historical recovery of the building or using an educational and pedagogical approach. He kept the ground floor and the Gothic chapel of the old Hospital of Sant Joan, as well as several outbuildings; he transformed the first floor where there was the bedroom of the family Deering in showrooms. The sections of the second floor -library, office and lounge- were totally transformed and he used part of the space also covering the terraces to build the apartment where he lived during his long stay Sitges.

The collection, nobody discussed its artistic value, was installed on the premises of the former residence of Charles Deering at the Maricel Palace, sea sector, called from that moment Museo Maricel de Mar, without any other intervention than the donor and advisors. Pérez-Rosales personally directed the installation of the collection together with Eduard Ripoll in the initial moments and, above all, with Baldomero Falgueras. Vicente Maestre performed the inventory in 1971 once installed, distributing works according to subjects and spaces, floor by floor and room by room with a very concise description.

The museum included the three floors of the building; the first two were devoted to the art collection and the last was the “Sala de los Recuerdos” (“Hall of remembrance”. The first impression provoked was that of grandeur and aesthetic value, and a total mixture of styles and artistic languages ​​The museum was inaugurated with the name Museo Maricel de Mar- Donation Dr. Jesús Pérez Rosales on 30 June 1970, after a year and a half of renovation work.

With the chartering of the Sitges Heritage Association, in 1994, the unification of the management of museums in Sitges was achieved.The Pérez Rosales Collection was remodeled a few times to decongest crowded halls, but not carrying out a thorough reorganization.

In 1995, the “Sala de los Recuerdos” was emptied to install the the Sitges Art Collection (Colecció d’Art de la Vila de Sitges), by them named “Pinacoteca Municipal” and the Maritime Collection of Emerencià Roig.In 2010, the Maricel Museum was completely emptied to make way for the start of the refurbishment and restoration of the building.

The new museum organization of the Maricel Museum arranges for the integration of Pérez-Rosales and Sitges Art Collection according to a new circuit and an orientation, that allows to follow the collection according to the different stages of the historiography of art. The Pérez Rosales Collection is presented enhancing the most artistic aspects, with the prioritization of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque, interposing interspersed different artistic languages. The sum of two collections promotes an artistic and historical interpretation, stressing the importance of the most valued pieces and the coherence of the discourse in favor of access and the social and educational role of the art museum.

Highlights

A Europa li ha sortit un gra
Josep M. Sert Badia, 1916, oil on canvas

Charles Deering commissioned Josep Maria Sert (Barcelona, ​​1874-1945) to execute a set of murals to decorate the main Maricel de Mar entrance.

The set consists of six compositions whose narrative structure runs from left to right, a characteristic of Sert’s work. With the exception of the first panel, the narrative has two sections: one human, corresponding to the main facts, real or desired, from the First World War, and a transcendent or imaginary one, which is parallel to the first and highlights the action described.

When Charles Deering left Sitges in 1921, he took the paintings with him. Years later, collector Dr. Jesus Perez-Rosales acquired them and returned them to the site for which they had been conceived.

Life and Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew the Apostle
by an anonymous Aragonese artist, second quarter of the 14th century, Chapel of Sant Bartomeu, adjoining the chancel of the Parish Church of Sant Cristòfol de Villalba de Perejiles (Zaragoza)

The Apostle Bartholomew is said to have preached the gospel in India — although it is now believed to have been Arabia — Mesopotamia and Armenia. He was skinned alive, for which reason, in the Middle Ages, a number of guilds, such as the tanners and the furriers, adopted him as their patron saint.

His life story is narrated on the walls of the chapel and focuses on the full-length image of the saint with the knife that fleeced him in his left hand. On the ground and flanking the saint, two demons allude to Bartholomew’s triumph over the evil spirit.

The Maricel Museum, Sitges, Spain
The Maricel Museum exhibits a complete artistic route from the tenth century to realism and figuration during the first half of the twentieth century, passing through the art collections of Dr. Jesús Pérez Rosales and the Collection of Sitges, with works of great quality. The museum exhibition integrates multiple languages, techniques and artistic media in order to achieve a maximum consistency in the chronological sequence of the development of the arts.

The museum included works from the collection of Dr. Jesús Pérez-Rosales that never had been exhibited in public, acquisitions by the Sitges Heritage Association since 2012 (Ramon Casas, Miquel Utrillo, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila, Artur Carbonell i Augustí Ferrer Pino) ​​and donations from artist’s relatives (Pere Jou and Alfred Sisquella).The museum’s own collection was complemented with several works from loans and deposits from art collections of the Government of Catalonia, the Museum of the Provincial Government of Barcelona and the Montserrat Museum, primarily with artists from “Modernisme” and “Noucentisme” linked to Sitges as Ramon Casas, Joaquim Sunyer, Lola Anglada, Pere Jou and Alfred Sisquella, among others. It also emphasizes the incorporation of valuable pieces of furniture from the ancestral home of Can Falç, currently under restoration.

The visit to the Maricel Museum begins on the second floor of the building with sculptures and altarpieces belonging to the Romanesque and Gothic periods (works by Pere Serra, Master of All, Master of Maluenda, Master of Armisen, Master of Belmonte, Master of Son, Joan d’Angers, Master of Viella, the Virgin of Sant Miquel del Fai, Master of Los Balbases, Tomàs Giner and Pedro Berruguete, among others), supplemented with furniture. The Renaissance and Baroque are represented by collections of ceramics and furniture, as well as still lifes. On the first floor, in the former room of Deering, there’s an exquisite selection of paintings (Arellano) and furniture dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Next are works from the Neoclassic period (Vicente Lopez) and Romanticism (Esquivel, Joaquim Espalter, Marià Fortuny, Federico de Madrazo); Realism (Felip Masó, Rafael Monleón Arcadi Mas i Fondevila and young Rusiñol), the hall dedicated to the Luminist School (Joan Roig Soler, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila, Antoni Almirall, Joaquim Miro i Argenter, Joan Batlle i Amell, Joan Soler i Casanovas and Càndid Duran); “Modernisme” (Santiago Rusiñol, Ramon Casas, Josep Llimona, Miquel Utrillo), with a hall dedicated to “Modernisme” in Sitges with the paintings that decorated “Cerveseria del Cau Ferrat” (Santiago Rusiñol, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila, Joaquim de Miro, Antoni Almirall, Càndid Duran) and “Noucentisme” (Joaquim Sunyer, Pere Jou, Lola Anglada, Enric Casanovas, Ismael Smith, Xavier Nogués, Josep M. Gol, Josep Clarà, Pau Gargallo, Jaume Otero, Josep Granyer and Apel·les Fenosa, among others).