Francisco Miralles y Galup

This bustling market scene, brimming with fashionable Spanish townspeople, is a flurry of bright colors, flowers, and fans painted with a liveliness that characterizes Francisco Miralles's genre pictures. 

Born in the coastal city of Valencia, Francisco Miralles y Galup moved to Paris with his family in 1866 and remained in the French capital for the next 27 years. He studied under Arturo Canela, whose studio became the meeting place for Catalán artists in the city. Fortuitously, his fellow countryman Eduardo Zamacois introduced him to the prestigious art dealer Adolphe Goupil, the agent for Boldini, Bouguereau, Gérôme and other notable 19th-century artists. Goupil commissioned numerous works from Miralles and steered him towards elegant society subjects, for which he became best known. Miralles' talents as a painter soon became widely appreciated, and his work avidly collected. He was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salons, in the Sala Parés in Barcelona and at numerous international exhibitions in London, Berlin, and America where his work was coveted.