Cau Ferrat, located in Sitges (in Catalonia in Spain ),
was the home and study of artist and writer Santiago Rusiñol, one of the most
important figures of the Modernisme movement in Catalonia
The Cau Ferrat Museum Temple
Painting, drawing, sculpture, wrought iron,
ceramic, glass and much of the plastic art authored by Rusiñol itself form a
unique artistic ensemble that, alongside with the building hosting the works,
are an example of how "Modernisme" revered all art forms. It is the
first must-see visit among all the museums of Sitges.
The renovation of the building carried out
between 2010 and 2014 led to the refurbishment of the structure and the
restoration and recovery of all the original assets that were part of our
heritage.
History:
The history of the museums of Sitges is
closely linked to collecting art since its inception and well as before the
opening of its first public museum, the Museum of Cau Ferrat
What had been the home workshop of Santiago
Rusiñol during the nineties of the nineteenth century and the museum-workshop,
is finally bequeathed to Sitges due to the love he professed for this
population, as we read literally in his will at the artist's death (1931). In
1933, the museum became public thanks to the director of the Museum of Art
of Catalonia Cau Ferrat Museum
With the collection of Charles Deering it
is just the opposite. In 1921, due to disagreements with Miquel Utrillo, he
takes his art collections out of Maricel. The halls of his homes and the Palace
became empty, showing empty walls, ceilings and roofs in an artistic and
sumptuous complex artistic with a high artistic and architectural value, one of
the most illustrious exponents of "Noucentista" architecture, as had
been recognized from early construction.
In 1932, Joaquin Folch i Torres rents
Maricel Palace to the descendants of Deering, with the idea of expanding the
art collections of Cau Ferrat, the true center of all the museums in Sitges. In
1933 he installs the collection of wrought iron belonging to the Museum Board,
in addition to the large wrought iron collection of Santiago Rusiñol located in
Cau Ferrat. The Board also provides a large part of the works of the Museu de
Reproductions ( Museum
of Reproductions
The Maricel Palace accommodates the Art
Collection of the City of Sitges, that was started in 1911 with the acquisition
of a picture by Joaquim Sunyer, "Maternidad" (oil, 1908), acquired by
popular subscription following the exhibition of the artist at Galeries
Laietanes of Barcelona that year. To this and other works that are property of
Sitges, other deposits are added made by the Board of Museums with the will to
outline and complete a discourse of painting from Sitges with a high quality
and significance. These works as Processo de Sant Bartomeu, de Felip Masó; La
recolecció de la malvasia, from Joaquim de Miró, or En Malavida i En Tirano
from Santiago Rusiñol.
In 1936 the Maritime Collection of
Emergencies Rig i Ravenous is installed, donated to Sitges by his brother,
Joseph, so it could be managed by the Board of Cau Ferrat. And yet, in June of
that same year, it takes place the exhibition of paintings by El Greco that are
public property in Catalonia
The front building that had been the winter
residence of Deering, adjacent to the official residence and that was the
dividing house between Maricel and Cau Ferrat, known as Can Xicarrons, with the
departure of Deering serves for another use. The American donates the property
to painter Ramon Casas, with whom he shares a great friendship. The residence
of Deering at Maricel located between the Fonollar street and the waterfront
remained as the property of Deering heirs until 1969.
With the change of regime, the Cau Ferrat
Museum and the Board of Cau Ferrat chartered in 1933 during the Republic to
manage the Museum and its extension to Maricel remained strongly conditioned
and limited by the Franco regime: the abolition of self-government
institutions, the screening and expulsion of Joaquim Folch i Torres from the
direction of the Art Museum of Catalonia, the transfer of all that had been
governed the Catalan Government in the Provincial Government of Barcelona, and
the political vicissitudes of the Provincial Government of Barcelona and City
Hall of Sitges .The Board of Cau Ferrat remains in force for a few years but
with zero possibilities of returning to the creative impetus of the thirties.
The Museum Board remains limited to the City Hall of Barcelona Cau
Ferrat Museum
and the Maricel Palace
On 21 January 1966, an agreement was signed
between the City Hall
of Sitges Maricel Palace
In 1949 a new museum is inaugurated in
Sitges, Romantic Museum Can Llopis. The last descendant of the family, married
the diplomat Manuel Llopis de Casades (1885-1935) bequeathed the manor to the
Government of Catalonia. The vicissitudes of the war and postwar delayed the
receipt of inheritance, heirs offered the property again in 1943 to the Province of Barcelona
The situation of the entire Maricel complex
is more complex. In 1952, the city of Sitges purchased Maricel Palace to the
heirs of Charles Deering, that becomes a property of the City Hall in its
entirely. Ramon Casas died without direct descendents (1934) and the house that
Deering donated to him goes to his relatives named Rocamora, until the
Provincial Government buys the property (1973). The waterfront building that
had been the residence of Deering was still closed and unused until 1969, when
the Province of Barcelona
With the opening of the new museum called
Maricel de Mar, the collections and halls of Maricel Palace
The arrival of the Collection of Dr. Jesús
Pérez Rosales and his installation at the Maricel Museum is part of the history
of the cultural policy during late Francoism its effects on the museistic
structure of the Provincial Government of Barcelona and the museums in Sitges.
It is the other side of the coin of the intervention process of the Board of
Museums of Catalonia regarding the expansion of Cau Ferrat and the installation
of the Museum of Reproductions
Between 1975 and 1995, there are several
attempts by the civilian society to promote an agreement of the Barcelona
Provincial Council and the City Hall of Sitges, all unsuccessful, to
reconstitute the Board of Cau Ferrat or, at least, and the reopening and
dignification of closed artistic collections, and to further the modernization
and growth of the Museums of Sitges. The Museums do not have any other staff
than the concierge staff that is in charge of customer service, and the figure
of a curator or director belonging to the organic structure of the Barcelona
Provincial Council.. The meritorious task carried out by curator Assumpta Gou i
Vernet in the late seventies for the constitution of Sitges Heritage
Association is neglected by political and administrative authorities of the
time. The Maricel Palau becomes a facility congresses and conferences for
various activities assigned by the Sitges Town Council since 1979. The Museu
Cau Ferrat Museum Maricel de Mar and Can Rocamora and Palau Maricel, lack any
regular maintenance tasks on all the problems suffered, including structural,
preventive conservation and adaptation to technical regulations and also the
facilities were structurally deteriorated to levels that threaten its
sustainability, conservation of works of art and character of museums open to
the public.
In 1994 began the last stage of the museums
in Sitges with the constitution of the Sitges Heritage Association, the
governing body and management of museums Sitges. The Sitges Heritage
Association is chartered by the Council of the City of Barcelona
and the City Hall
of Sitges Maricel Museum , the Collection of Dr. Jesús Pérez Rosales and
the Romantic Museum ,
the collection of dolls Lola Anglada; by the Sitges
Town Hall , the Museum of Cau Ferrat
In 1995, the Sitges Art Collection and the
Maritime Collection were installed on the second floor of the Museum Maricel
while the Wrought Iron Collection from the Board of Museums remained in the
facilities of Maricel
Palace
The restoration project, fitting and
refurbishment of all the buildings of Maricel de Mar Museum, Can Rocamora and
Cau Ferrat Museum in Sitges executed by the Sitges Heritage Association in
2009, aims to general sanitation and structural consolidation of buildings,
compliance with standards of facilities, security and access and restoration of
artistic elements inside and outside buildings. The project is funded by the
Ministry of Public Works under the 1% Cultural Program, the Provincial Council
of Barcelona and the Generalist of Catalonia. Started in 2010, the project
ended in 2014. Simultaneously, the new museum project has been prepared in
parallel of aforesaid buildings and its implementation has ended, entirely
funded by the Barcelona Provincial Council.
The collection of paintings and drawings
The Cau Ferrat's collection of paintings
and drawings, along with ironwork, is the largest in terms of the number of
items.[citation needed] It contains those works by Rusiñol that the artist
chose to hold onto all his life and for which he felt a special affection. Furthermore,
many of the leading artists of Catalan of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries are represented: Ramon Casas, Pablo Picasso, Arcadi Mas i
Fondevila, Isidre Nonell, Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa, Ramon Pichot, etc.
Some were friends of Rusiñol. The paintings and drawings in the Cau reflect its
owner’s tastes as well as the artistic trends in vogue at that time:
impressionism, modernism, symbolism, etc.
Most of the works are by the artist
himself. The tour of the collection follows the order of the rooms: Entrance
Hall, Kitchen/Dining-Room, Sala del Brollador (Fountain room), Office,
Living-Room and Recess, Staircase and Great Hall.
The collection of ironwork
Rusiñol’s reputation as a collector of
ironwork preceded his fame as a painter and his popularity as a dramatist.
Thanks to Rusiñol and a small group of antique ironwork collectors (amongst
them several of friends of his who shared his obsession), the art of wrought
iron was no longer seen as the expression of a lesser creative activity and
became a subject for study. At the same time, it underwent an important
revaluation which, like in many other arts and crafts, showed itself especially
in Modernista architecture (e.g. the buildings designed by Gaudí, Puig i
Cadafalch or Domènech i Montaner).
The collection of glassware
Unlike the collection of ironwork, part of
which already decorated the walls of the studio-workshop in Barcelona
The collection of furniture and sculpture
On entering the Cau Ferrat for the first
time, the visitor sees the large number of items the museum houses and the
horror vacui that presides over the whole building, for which reason many items
are only glanced at or even go unnoticed. Amongst the items that are most often
missed are the furniture and sculptures, which are often considered simple
decorative complements of no intrinsic value.
The collection of ceramics
In the course of his life, Santiago Rusiñol
put together a considerable collection of ceramics which today is concentrated
mainly in two of the rooms on the ground floor of the Cau Ferrat, the
Kitchen/Dining-room and the Sala del Brollador. Here the visitor will find a
varied selection of more than 200 items ranging from the fourteenth century to
the nineteenth century, mainly plates and dishes, but also bowls,
pharmaceutical jars, washbasins, fruit-stands, pitchers, soup tureens and
various tiled panels.
These items come from very varied origins.
Catalan potteries account for about a quarter of the collection, although the
main pottery-making centres of Valencia , Aragon , Castile ,
Andalusia and Murcia Majorca ,Italy
and Florence
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