{"id":8563,"date":"2016-12-01T12:18:27","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T11:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/?p=8563"},"modified":"2016-12-01T12:44:39","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T12:44:39","slug":"the-persistence-of-a-millionairess-for-the-virgin-of-sallent-de-sanauja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/the-persistence-of-a-millionairess-for-the-virgin-of-sallent-de-sanauja\/","title":{"rendered":"The persistence of a millionairess for the “Virgin of Sallent de Sana\u00fcja”"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mireia Berenguer<\/h6>\n

\"plandiura\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Gothic sculpture\u00a0Virgin Sallent de Sana\u00fcja<\/a>,\u00a0today part of the collection of the Museu Nacional, has a curious story behind it.<\/p>\n

Llu\u00eds Plandiura i Pou<\/strong><\/a> (1882-1956)<\/strong>, one of the major collectors of Catalan art, gathered together, throughout his life, thousands of artistic objects from all periods, until he ended up creating an authentic museum in his home;\u00a0 a three-storied building, situated in the Barcelona neighbourhood of la Ribera just in front of the old market of the Born. This museum,<\/em> overflowing with works of art, had to close its doors in 1932 when, so as to resolve the economic problems that had affected his business in the colonies, Plandiura sold his collection to the Board of Museums.<\/p>\n

\"lluis_plandiura_i_pou_1903\"<\/a>

Llu\u00eds Plandiura i Pou in the magazine\u00a0Catalunya art\u00edstica<\/em> (1903)<\/p><\/div>\n

In any case, and contrary to the norms that many art collectors follow, jealous of their intimacy, while the museum<\/em> remained open, Plandiura wanted to turn his private collection into a public museum.<\/strong> That\u2019s why he wanted to open the doors of his home and to invite anyone who felt the attraction of enjoying the pleasures offered by art for a while, but also at the same time, to open the doors to all those who went for professional reasons.\u00a0 Many illustrious people visited his collections and there are a few anecdotes to tell about some of them. Today, however, we will comment on just one of them.<\/p>\n

One day an American millionairess, the name of whom we don\u2019t know for sure, visited the industrialist accompanied by Francesc Camb\u00f3, who at that time held the position of Financial Minister.\u00a0 On passing through the room in which Plandiura exhibited the Gothic carvings, she remained spellbound in front of a Virgin with Child, from the 14th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 It was none other than the Virgin<\/em>, which came, according to the tradition, from Sallent de Sana\u00fcja<\/strong>, in the Solson\u00e8s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Photo of the room in which Plandiura exhibited the Virgin of Sallent, in 1926.Fotos: Arxiu Fotogr\u00e0fic de Barcelona<\/h6>\n

It is an alabaster carving with the remains of polychrome and gilded with gold leaf, which nowadays can be found located in room 20 of the Gothic art collection.\u00a0 It is one of the most successful Marian sculptural works from the lower middle ages in our collection, due to its beauty and artistic quality, while also being elegant, in representation of the Virgin with child in arms.\u00a0 It is a carving which resembles another Virgin, that of Boixadors<\/a>, which is conserved in the Museu Episcopal of Vic, of very similar stylistic characteristics.<\/p>\n

\"mare-de-deu-de-sallent\"<\/a>

Virgin of\u00a0Sallent<\/em><\/a>. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya<\/p><\/div>\n

The piece that the anecdote we mentioned above refers to, had been acquired by a Barcelona collector in July 1921, through one of his agents, Ignacio Pollak, an Austrian Antique dealer with whom Plandiura had established commercial relations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Technical proceeding to inventory the objects in the room Collector Plandiura. Photo: Barcelona Photographic Archive<\/p><\/div>\n

The sculpture in question was liked so much by the lady that she didn\u2019t think twice; she took out a cheque book and wrote down: one thousand dollars. The collector responded that it wasn\u2019t for sale.\u00a0 The visitor left that room and strolled around the others, and then suddenly took out her cheque book once again and wrote down: one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.\u00a0 There was another clear refusal by the collector and a polite deviation of the conversation.\u00a0 The millionairess offered up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the piece thinking that Plandiura wouldn\u2019t now be able to resist that succulent figure.\u00a0 The Catalan collector, however, once again refused the offer, so the wealthy amateur gave him a blank cheque: Plandiura, once more, declined.\u00a0 Nevertheless, what he couldn\u2019t refuse was to let her contemplate the Virgin for the last time; a somewhat desperate request from the wealthy North-American lady that, this time, received his consent.<\/p>\n

It is said that she stayed there for a whole hour!<\/p>\n

Enlla\u00e7os relacionats: <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cL\u2019obra d\u2019un home sol\u201d. La Col\u00b7lecci\u00f3 Plandiura. Mirador, 1932<\/em>, p. 7.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEl Museu d\u2019Art de Catalunya \u00e9s obert\u201d. La Rambla<\/em>, 1934, p. 12<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cL\u2019escultura medieval en la col\u00b7lecci\u00f3 Plandiura\u201d, Butllet\u00ed dels Museus d\u2019Art de Barcelona<\/em>, 1933<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Altres maresded\u00e9u g\u00f2tiques de la col\u00b7lecci\u00f3 del museu: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya. Mare de D\u00e9u<\/em>. Cap a 1330-1340\u00a0 An\u00f2nim. Catalunya.<\/a><\/p>\n

Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya. Mare de D\u00e9u<\/em>. Primera meitat del segle XIV. An\u00f2nim. Fran\u00e7a, Par\u00eds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mireia Berenguer The Gothic sculpture\u00a0Virgin Sallent de Sana\u00fcja,\u00a0today part of the collection of the Museu Nacional, has a curious story behind it. Llu\u00eds Plandiura i Pou (1882-1956), one of the major collectors of Catalan art, gathered together, throughout his life, thousands of artistic objects from all periods, until he ended up creating an authentic museum…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":8551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[230,292],"class_list":["post-8563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collection","tag-collecting","tag-lluis-plandiura-en","author-mireia-berenguer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/cap\u00e7alera2-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tWCI-2e7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8563"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8570,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions\/8570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}