Cau Ferrat Museum

Album of artistic

The Barcelona Artistic-Archeological Association, founded in 1878 and of which Rusiñol was a member since 1881, organized different exhibitions and published numerous books, many of them first monographs devoted to subjects that hadn’t been studied before then. In 1881 it published the Álbum de detalles artístico y plástico-decorativos de la Edad Media catalana (Album of Artistic and Plastic-Decorative Details from the Catalan Middle Ages), where Rusiñol presented twenty-three drawings of wrought iron. Some of them most likely belonged to the group he exhibited at the Fine Arts Exhibition in Girona in the autumn of 1878, the first time the young painter showed his work to the general public.

Also as part of the events at the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona, in 1888, the association organized an important show where the works collected by some of its more than three hundred members could be seen. Rusiñol presented a large part of his wrought iron collection.

Rusiñol wanted to put an end to the nonexistence of studies on Catalan ironwork by paying for the publication of two volumes of a book on Hispanic wrought iron in 1901, with texts and drawings by Lluís Labarta and an introduction by Miquel Utrillo. A bilingual Spanish-French edition designed to promote its international dissemination.

Sociedad Artístico-Arqueológica Barcelonesa

Álbum de detalles artísticos y plástico-decorativos de la Edad Media catalana (Album of artistic and plastic-decorative details from the Catalan Middle Age)

Barcelona: Printed by Luis Tasso Serra, 1882

Binding in cloth and gold

48 pages + [75] heliogravures

Private collection

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