Fountain of Saint Paschal in Genovés (Valencia)
Ca. 1900. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
The San Pascual fountain is found in a small municipality near Xátiva –on the banks of the river Albaida–, which is a mountainous area called El Genovés. It is built on the lower part of a hill with cypress trees –which is known as the ‘Calvario’–, and at the top there is a chapel dedicated to the Holy Christ.
Around 1781, Mr. Pascual Fenollet Roca de Togores, the Lord of this territory, commissioned the building of this fountain dedicated to Saint Paschal Bailón. Its fully Baroque structure shows a circular bench made of stone blocks and a niche, topped with an image of the Saint on its facade. It is whitewashed as is usual in Levantine buildings and monuments. Santiago Rusiñol also depicted this fountain in 1927, as he spent some time at the house of his friend José Guiteras in the city of Xátiva.
The painter Antonio Gomar was born in Benigánim, whose municipality borders that of El Genovés, so the image depicted must have been very familiar to him. This work was deposited in the Spanish Parliament. Madrid.
Orihuela Maeso, Mercedes y de Castro Sánchez, Mª Teresa, Presencia del Museo del Prado en el Congreso de los Diputados. Revista de las Cortes Generales, Congreso de los Diputados, 2008, p.439-440
