Satyr watching some Nymphs dancing

This panel was part of the painted scheme that Josep María Sert produced for the decoration of Kent House owned by Sir Saxton Noble in Knightsbridge, London. It forms a pair with Apollo flying through the Clouds, also in the Colección Santander. In his book José María Sert. His Life and Work, Alberto Castillo compared this panel to Japanese kakemonos and also noted the similarity between the figure of the satyr and Michelangelo’s sculpture of Day for the tomb of Guiliano de’ Medici. Sert’s satyr plays the bagpipes and as such is an appropriate figure for the Music Room for which this panel was painted.