Retrat de Santiago Rusiñol (Portrait of Santiago Rusiñol)

"On the 10th of January 1926, throngs of people got decked out in their best evening wear to attend the tribute to Santiago Rusiñol in Sitges. This homage was spearheaded by Catalan intellectuals, and numerous representatives from the Modernist and Noucentista generation participated. The core event in the programme, and the one with the most participants, was held at the foot of the monument to El Greco. There, Josep Maria de Sagarra read a elegy to Rusiñol, after which the painter’s grandson made him an offering of wrought-iron laurel and holm oak branches. Another gift that Rusiñol received during this tribute was this splendid charcoal drawing that the committee of honour in charge of the homage commissioned from Ramon Casas. Casas’ venerable image of his friend contrasts starkly with a pair of portraits of Rusiñol that are still hanging in this room, executed many years earlier, when the artist was still young and had a huge number of projects yet to produce. The first one dates from his years in Paris, in 1892, and M. T. Müller, a colleague from the Académie de La Palette, is its author. The second one was drawn by Ramon Casas during a stay in Madrid in 1904. (Museu del Cau Ferrat, Sitges, 30647)"