FRANCISCO LACOMA Y FONTANET (Barcelona, 1784 – Paris

FRANCISCO LACOMA Y FONTANET
(Barcelona, 1784 – Paris, 1849)
“Portrait of a Man / Portrait of a Woman”
Oils on canvas
40.5 x 32.5 cm / 42.3 x 33 cm
Ca. 1819-1824
A talented pupil of Salvador Molet at La Llotja, Francisco Lacoma y Fontanet was
awarded various prizes at that art school between 1799 and 1803 and received a study
grant from the Department of Commerce of the Barcelona Consulate to move first to
Madrid, where he attended the Academia de San Fernando and took part in its general
competitions between 1805 and 1808, and then to Italy around 1808, although the latter
fact has not been conclusively demonstrated (OSSORIO Y BERNARD; 1868, p. 351).
Finally, he went to Paris, where he was living in 1810. There he attended the École des
Beaux-Arts and was a pupil of Gérard van Spaendonck (1759-1840). It is said that
during his early years in the French capital, Lacoma studied with Jacques-Louis David
(AUGÉ Y ROMANENS; 1989, exhib. cat.), whose influence is clearly evident in his
portraits. Lacoma was awarded the Gold Medal at the Salon in 1810 and participated
again between 1812 and 1814, although he was subsequently denied permission to
exhibit at the Salons due to his role in the return of works of art seized by the
Napoleonic army in Spain between 1814 and 1815, an undertaking coordinated by the
Spanish ambassador in Paris, the Duke of Fernán-Núñez, on the basis of the artist’s
inventories and investigations. Lacoma inventoried 230 paintings as well as prints and
miniatures. Most of them, however, were never returned (État des tableaux reconnus
por Monsieur Lacoma… 1814, Archivo RABASF, NAVARRETE MARTÍNEZ: 1999,
PP.355-356; STAMPA PIÑEIRO: 2011, pp.389ff).
Lacoma specialised in painting flowers and portraits and as such was made an
academician of merit in Flower Painting by the Academia de San Fernando on 14
March 1819 (Archivo RABASF, 43-3bis/1 and 88/3). Particularly notable within his
oeuvre is the gallery of portraits of members of the court of Ferdinand VII, which he
embarked on in 1819 and which is now principally in the Casita del Príncipe in El
Escorial (fig. 5). It includes portraits of around twenty members of the monarch’s
family: the Infanta María Teresa, Carlos María Isidro (fig. 3), María Cristina de Borbón,
María Francisca de Braganza, the Count of Lecce, the Count of Siracusa, the Duke of
Calabria, the Duke of Notto, the Princess Antonia, the Princess de Beira, the Infanta
Carlos Luis, the Infante Francisco de Paula, the Infanta Carolina Fernanda, the Infante
Sebastián, the Prince of Capua, Ferdinand VII himself and his third wife, María Josefa
Amalia of Saxony (fig. 4), etc. Copies exist in Italy of the portraits of the Infante
Francisco de Paula (also an Academician of merit of the Academia de San Fernando),
and of the Infanta María Luisa Carlota from that series. Shortly before this and still in
Paris, Lacoma painted the wife and daughters of the Count of Peralada (1817), at that
date Spanish ambassador in the French capital (FOLCH Y TORRES: 1953, pp.21-22).
Another works that have been singled out for praise are the portraits of the Marquis and
Marchioness of Guadalquivir, Alejandro Aguado (1832) and Carmen Moré (1833) (fig.
6 and 7), now in the Museo del Romanticismo in Madrid.
The present pair of previously unpublished portraits should be located within this
aristocratic, diplomatic and courtly context that extended from Paris to Barcelona and
Madrid (figs. 1 and 2). For the male sitter, Lacoma deploys a compositional format to
be found in other portraits by him of this period. The sitter is standing, wearing a black
dress coat and holding his high crowned hat, stick and gloves, dressed in the correct
fashion of the day and located next to a table in his study. She wears a white dress in the
Empire style with an Indian shawl and coral hair ornament, both symbols of status. She
leans against a balustrade that leads into the garden of a town palace. The only attributes
in the two images are the decorations worn by the man on his coat, which may refer to
the Royal Order of Charles III (blue and white) and the Cross of San Fernando (yellow,
red and white). The same decorations appear in the portrait of Mateo Casado y Sirelo by
Vicente López (fig. 10).
These two sitters may have been connected with the Spanish embassy in France or with
artist’s circle of friends. Around 1832 Lacoma lived at number 2, rue de Tournon, as
indicated in the Annuaire des Artistes of that year (GUYOT DE FÈRE: 1832, pp.94-95),
which also states that many of his portraits were reproduced as lithographs by Maurin
(including those of the Duke of San Carlos, José Miguel de Carvajal y Manrique) and
that his paintings were represented in important collections in Paris, London, Madrid,
Saint Petersburg, Naples and Florence. The Annuaire also states that Lacoma was made
a knight of the Order of the Golden Spur in 1820 but this information remains to be
confirmed. Among his friends were the above-mentioned Count of Peralada and the
Count of la Unión, the playwright Jean-François Cailhava, whose portrait by Lacoma of
1814 is in the Musée Goya in Castres, and the Catalan chemist Mateu Orfila, whom he
painted in 1831 (fig. 8).
It is from the celebrated scientist Orfila that we have information on Lacoma’s social
situation in Paris. During the early years of Louis-Philippe’s reign Orfila lived on the
principal floor of the building originally known as the Hôtel de la Présidente de
Bandeville in Passy (now number 80, rue de Passy, XVI), owned by Marie-AnneCatherine Bigot de Graveron. The building passed into the ownership of the furniture
dealer Mme Barra, who owned it from 1814 to 1844, when it was known as the Hôtel
Barra or Barras. The building was the venue for Orfila’s celebrated artistic gatherings
every Wednesday and Sunday, attended by leading lights of political and cultural life of
the day, among them Lacoma. Orfila did not hesitate to favour his friends, allowing the
daughter of the famous playwright Cailhava to life in the hôtel for a lengthy period,
while receiving personalities of the status of the Princess Galitzine at his home. Orfila
also referred to Lacoma in volume III of his Elements de chimie appliqué à la Médicine
et aux Arts (ORFILA: pp.188-89), in which he refers to him as the person who best
understood the process for dissolving a derivate of rubber used in painting.
Étienne-León de Lamothe-Langon referred to both men in L’Espion russe, in which he
stated that Orfila and Lacoma were part of Cailhava’s circle and confirmed the artist’s
merits in the following terms: “On déplore que la faiblesse de sa vue et sa nonchalance
le détournent d'un art où il aureit marché à pas de géant, mais où il a su se donner une
place éminente” (LAMOTHE-LANGON: 1838, vol. II, pp. XX and XX.) In addition to the
information on the artist’s social context, provided here in order to evoke the roll-call of
personalities whom he painted, a further piece of information supports the dating
proposed for these two portraits in this text and helps us to come closer to a possible
identification of the sitters. One of the canvases has the maker’s mark on it (fig. 11),
which is the stamp of Belot (rue l’Arbre-Sec, 3), used between 1805 and 1824 (fig. 12).
The shop, which sold art materials, was next to the Louvre. It was founded by the
painter Michel Belot (1730-1792) and continued by his widow Marie and their son
Michel (LABREUCHE: 2011). While the canvas may have been acquired at an earlier
date and used some years later, it is more probable that it can be used to argue a date of
prior to 1824 for these two works.
Alejandro Martínez
PhD, Department of History and Theory of Art at the UAM
Figs. 1 y 2
Fig.3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Figs. 6 y 7
Fig. 8
Fig.9
Fig. 11
Fig.10
Fig. 12
Related Literature:
AINAUD DE LASARTE, Josep María “El Renacimiento, el Barroco y el Neoclásico”. In:
Tierras de España: Cataluña. Madrid: Publicaciones de la Fundación Juan March,
1978, vol. 2, pp. 73-132 (p. 114).
_____. From the Nineteenth to the Surprising Twentieth Century. Catalan Painting.
New York: Skira, vol. III, 1992 p. 13.
ALCOLEA GIL, Santiago. “Notas biográficas sobre los Lacoma”. Anales y Boletín de los
Museos de Arte de Barcelona, vol. IX, 1951, pp. 149-157.
_____. “La pintura en Barcelona durante el siglo XVIII”. Anales y Boletín de los
Museos de Arte de Barcelona, vol. XV, 1961-1962, pp. 97-99.
AUGE, Jean-Louis. “Quelques précisions d'archives sur Aparicio, Álvarez y Cubero,
Lacoma et Madrazo”. In: Le Néoclasicisme en Espagne: Journés d'étude. Castres:
Musée Goya, 1991, pp. 114-131.
AUGE, Jean-Louis y ROMANENS, Marie-Paule. Les Élèves espagnols de David. Exhib.
cat., Castres: Musée Goya, 1989.
BENEZIT, Emmanuel.Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, culpteurs,
dessinateurs et graveurs… Paris: Gründ, 1976.
Bulletin de la Société historique d'Auteuil et de Passy, 31 December 1895.
Copy available online in the BNF-Gallica:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6503146p.image).
État des tableaux reconnus par Monsieur Lacoma peintre fondé de pouvoirs des Grands
d'Espagne auxquels ils doivent être rendus, conformement a la decission de la Majesté
Louis 18, du 8 mai 1814, Paris, 15 June 1814. Manuscrito, Archivo de la Real
Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, sign. 12/1.
FOLCH Y TORRES, Joaquín. “El pintor Lacoma (1784-1849)”. Gaseta de les Arts, no. 62,
1926, pp. 1-5.
_____. “Alrededor de un retrato de la condesa de Peralada, pintado por Lacoma
(1817)”. Destino. Política de unidad de Barcelona, no. 384, 1 August 1953, pp. 21-22.
GARRUT, Josep Maria. Dos siglos de pintura catalana (XIX-XX). Madrid: Ibérico
Europea de Ediciones, 1974, p. 52.
GAYA NUÑO, Juan Antonio. La pintura española fuera de España (historia y catálogo).
Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1958, p. 216.
_____. Ars Hispaniae. Arte del siglo XIX, vol. 19. Madrid: Editorial Plus-Ultra, 1966,
pp. 21-22.
GENAILLE, Jeanne. “Note sur François Lacoma y Fontana, peintre espagnol actif en
France”. Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire de l'Art Français, 1968, pp. 209-210.
GUYOT DE FERE, François-Fortuné. Anuaire des Artistes Français. Paris: Guyot de Fère,
Audot et Gosselin, 1832, pp. 94-95.
La Ilustración Católica, Madrid, no. 9, 25 March 1887, p. 11.
LABREUCHE, Pascal. Paris, capitale de la toile à peindre. XVIIIe-XIXe siècle. Paris:
CTHS/INHA, 2011.
LAMOTHE-LANGON, Étienne-Léon de. L'Espion russe, ou la Société parissienne, para
madame la comtesse O. D. Paris: Charles Lachapelle, 1838, vol. II.
NAVARRETE MARTÍNEZ, Esperanza. La Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando y la
pintura en la primera mitad del siglo XIX. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española,
1999.
ORFILA, Mateu Josep Bonaventura. Élements de chimie appliquée à la Médicine et Aux
Arts. Paris: Crochard, 1835, vol. III, pp. 188ff.
OSSORIO Y BERNARD, Manuel. Galería biográfica de artistas españoles del siglo XIX.
Madrid: Imprenta a cargo de Ramón Moreno, 1868, vol. I, p. 351.
Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, July-September 1961, p. 398 (note 4).
Copy available online in the BNF-Gallica:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5729181t.image
STAMPA PIÑEIRO, Leopoldo. Pólvora, plata y boleros. Memorias de embajadas, saqueos
y pasatiempos… Madrid: Marcial Pons Ediciones de Historia, 2011, pp. 389ff.
TRIADÓ, Joan Ramon. L'època del barroc: s. XVII-XVIII. Història de l'art català. Vol.
5. Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1984, p. 264.