CESAR ALVAREZ DUMONT Villareal de San Antonio, Portugal (1

80 drawings on paper and 20 photographs. Director of the Schools of Fine Arts of Seville, Cadiz and Malaga, Cesar Alvarez Dumont devoted himself mainly to history painting and illustration, although genre scenes are also frequent in his output. With a solid training in Madrid and Rome, he submitted his works to national and international competitions, winning a good number of prizes and distinctions. In them he set out to reflect some events of the modern history of Spain, with a predilection for combats and battles, presenting figures imbued with a heroic tone. This notebook of drawings by the artist consists of eighty pages of quarto size, mostly with drawings in pencil and pen. Some are dated, which allows the album to be dated across a broad chronological span, between 1877 and 1900. In the group of smaller leaves (12.5 x 20 cm) pencil drawings predominate, with themes and landscapes of North Africa such as Melilla, Tangier, Fez, Mogador - present-day Essaouira -, Suez, etc.; places where he may have been accompanied by his brother, the also painter Eugenio Alvarez Dumont. There are also landscapes of other peninsular locations such as Barcelona, Gibraltar, Despenaperros, Alhama, etc. On the leaves of slightly larger size (14 x 23 cm) pen and black ink drawings predominate, notably a section with hurried designs of different types of vessels and another with sketches and references to some of his known pictorial compositions such as the Heroic Defence of the Tower of San Agustin in Zaragoza in the War of Independence, Ladies in the Harem, Vows of Love, The Child of God or the Martyrs of Science. The lot is completed with twenty photographs from the painter's family circle, among which some of his works are reproduced, such as El parador de la alegria. Both the photographs and some drawings contained in the album show damage to the support and damp staining. Measurements: 12.5 x 20 cm. and 14 x 23 cm.