Portrait of a Gentleman (preparatory sketch)
Ca. 1855. Oil on canvas.Not on display
Federico de Madrazo paid special attention to the form in his works. However, except in the first part of his vast career, he always did so without accentuating, emphasising or exacerbating the line. He employed it in a very discreet and just measure, so that its strict function was integrated as comfortably as possible into the general pictorial-atmospheric intonation. It is very likely that he soon stopped working with pencils and charcoals in the preliminary drawing of his oil portraits, as can be deduced from the brushstrokes on this canvas of considerable proportions. It can also be noticeable in a sketch for the portrait of the Marquioness of Rambures, executed even without having planned the whole figure with a preparatory drawing, shaping it as he painted it. It may therefore be thought that a brief pencil sketch on a small piece of paper was enough for him to think about the composition and character of his effigies before he painted them on canvas. In fact, this is what the brief sketch for a portrait of Isabella II, a drawing in the Biblioteca Nacional, seems to indicate
Los Madrazo: una familia de artistas, Madrid, Ayuntamiento, Concejalía de Cultura, 1985, p.165 nº55
