Els segadors (The Reapers), Antoni Estruch, 1907. Oil on canvas, 262 × 404 cm. Sabadell Art Museum.
History painting
The Reapers, also known as Corpus of Blood, by Antoni Estruch Bros (Sabadell, 1873 - Buenos Aires, 1957), is a typical work in the 19th-century concept of art. It was executed in an era of upheaval, when the artist had lost the support of his patron, Francesc Ponsà. Yet interestingly, he then painted the two works which garnered him the most renown, despite their controversy: The Reapers (1907) and The Eleventh of September 1714 (1909). The former was primarily spread in graphic format, since the Madriguera lithographic workshop commercialised an oleograph of it in 1907, which connected with the more aesthetically traditional sector of the ardent Catalanism that was predominant at the time.
