Cecilio Pla Seated in his Studio next to the Triptych The Discovery of Anaesthesia
1906 - 1907. Gelatin / Collodion on photographic paper.Not on display
The photographic reproduction of paintings was fairly common practice for Pla, who kept images of his works in his archive and sometimes had his photograph taken next to them. This photograph shows the painter posing next to the triptych The Discovery of Anaesthesia, which tells the story of Horace Wells, in the studio at 69 Calle San Bernardo. This triptych was produced by Pla around 1906 under the direct supervision of the dentist Luis Subirana, a fervent admirer of Wells’s who presented the painting together with his research at the Spanish Society of Dentistry in 1907. Visible behind the triptych is Saint Isidore, Patron Saint of Madrid, as well as other small paintings to the left of the picture.
The artist must have had a special appreciation for this work, which depicts several episodes from Wells’s life: in the left panel, the moment when the American dentist and his wife attend a demonstration by Gardner Q. Colton; in the right panel, the jeers of medical students during his departure from his failed demonstration at the Massachusetts General Hospital; and in the central panel, his death in his bathtub aged 33, with his veins open and a bottle of chloroform on the floor. Moreover, the realism with which Wells’s story is depicted makes it an interesting painting from a scientific perspective.
Sánchez Torija, Beatriz, Cecilio Pla y su relación con la fotografía.. Boletín del Museo del Prado, 2019-2021, p.167-179, f.2
