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Portrait of Mercè Bassols and Xavier Montsalvatge.

Date
1910
Archive
Garrotxa County Archive
Document type
Imatge fixa
Reference code
ACGAX140-61-T3-
Link to the archive
Description

The portrait of Mercè Bassols and Xavier Montsalvatge, taken during their wedding trip to Plaça de Sant Marc in Venice in 1910, is a photographic document of great symbolic and cultural value, preserved in the Alt Empordà County Archives. This image is part of the historical cycle of the 19th-20th centuries and represents a graphic documentary typology linked to a private fund. Territorially, despite being taken abroad, it reflects the reality of a Catalan family and contributes to the thematic diversity of the project in the field of culture, art and international relations. Xavier Montsalvatge, writer, painter and patron, is part of a Catalan bourgeoisie that maintains cultural and social links with Europe, and this portrait is a clear example of this. The photograph illustrates how the Catalan bourgeoisie of the time projected itself towards Europe, both in the aesthetic and intellectual spheres, and how this international openness was part of the construction of a modern and European identity. It is, therefore, a visual testimony of the connection between Catalonia and the European cultural currents of the moment.