Students of Cecilio Pla painting a naked model
1908 - 1912. Gelatin / Collodion on glass plaque.Not on display
Cecilio Pla y Gallardo was an artist who developed a career as both a painter and illustrator, while also playing an important role as a teacher in various schools and in his own studio. Following the example of his mentor Emilio Sala—who had published “La gramática del color” in 1906—Pla compiled his own artistic ideas in “Cartilla del arte pictórico”, a manual followed by several generations of artists and published in two editions.
A significant number of young painters trained in his studio, where the master taught with a method that respected the individuality of each student, encouraging their personal growth without imposing his own artistic personality. In the early decades of the 20th century, the presence of women in artistic practice became increasingly common, as can be seen in these stereoscopic photographs taken in Cecilio Pla’s studio. In them, a young female painter—alongside her fellow students—works from life, painting a nude model. The easels display the students’ various portraits of the sitter, who, adorned only with a flower in her hair, poses before a light-colored cloth that accentuates the sinuous lines of her body.
To create a three-dimensional effect when viewed together, each stereoscopic pair offers slightly wider views on either side, allowing additional details of the artist’s studio to be observed. For instance, a clock is hidden behind the cloth in front of which the model poses in the right-hand plate.
The two stereoscopic plates arrived at the Museum inside a Lumière & Jougla box bearing a handwritten pencil inscription reading “studio,” and it is highly likely that they were taken in the studio Pla maintained on Calle Carranza in Madrid between 1908 and 1912. The painter was an enthusiast of stereoscopy, and in his classes—where photography was regularly discussed—this photographic technique may also have been occasionally practiced. The authorship of these images, therefore, could plausibly be attributed to Pla himself or to one of his students.
Sánchez Torija, Beatriz, 'Autoría desconocida. Alumno de Cecilio Plá pintando una modelo desnuda. Alumnos pintando una modelo desnuda en el estudio de Cecilia Plá'. Arte y transformaciones sociales en España (1885-1910), Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2024, p.192-193 nº101
