Satire of Romantic Suicide

This painting and the one titled Satire of the Romantic Lover’s Suicide,(Museo del Romanticismo, inv. 33), are the most surprising representation of death in all Spanish Romanticism. They were signed by Leonardo Alenza, who presented them to the Academia de San Fernando in 1839. / Alenza makes a sharp, ironic criticism of men of letters as victims of the Romantic influence and of suicide as a final solution to their problems. / These were some of the first paintings to be incorporated into the new Museo Romántico, in the year 1921, thanks to the generosity of the marquis of Cerralbo.