Seville Catedral on the Side of the Steps

This is an extremely interesting view of the cathedral’s main façade, at a sharp angle from the street, in which the open door of the Puerta del Bautismo (Baptismal Door) can be seen. A group of passers-by are talking in the porch. Villaamil’s romantic fantasy enhances the already graceful proportions of the magnificent Gothic architecture, topped by a forest of crenellations, pinnacles and flying buttresses. Facing it is a group of dwellings on a colonnade, where a merchant is selling his goods. The picturesque flavour imparted by the houses, whose eaves, and rooves are rounded off by gutters, chimneys and masts, is complemented by the skillful, almost anthropological, portrayal that Villamil makes of the different popular types who frequent the vicinity of the cathedral. Their clothing and equipment are reproduced with an acute sense of direct observation, having been sketched from live models by the artist in his notebooks. As the companion to the picture of The Corpus Christi Procession inside Seville Cathedral, it also suffered the consequences of reckless cleaning that eliminated a large part of its glaze. The cleaning also wiped off several figures to the point of making them almost transparent, even though some of the glaze did remain on the façade of the cathedral, This is in all probability the picture that Villaamil submitted under the above title to the San Fernando Academy Exhibition in 1836, which is mentioned as such by his subsequent bibliography, (which, however, neglects to mention its whereabouts).