General view of Toledo from the Cruz de los Canónigos

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1836
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Art Appreciation
General View of Toledo from the Cross of the Canons (Vista general de Toledo desde la Cruz de los Canónigos) is an 1836 oil on canvas, 90 × 110 cm, by the Spanish Romantic landscape painter Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.
Pérez Villaamil, born in Ferrol in 1807, returned to Spain in 1833 after several years as a scene painter in Puerto Rico and that year met the Scottish painter David Roberts, whose example shaped his style. He settled in Madrid in 1834 and joined the Royal Academy of San Fernando the following year. The museum's commentary describes this canvas as one of the best and most typical works of the early Romantic phase that began with Roberts's influence.
The view is taken from the spot then called the Cross of the Canons, at the entrance to Toledo beside the road from Madrid. The cross itself, long since vanished, stands in the foreground; its base carries the inscription 'TOLEDO / VILLA-AMIL / 1836'. Behind it are buildings of the convent of the Discalced Trinitarians, now gone, and a road crowded with country people leading to the Puerta Nueva de Bisagra. Above rise the Alcázar, its towers then without their spires, the cathedral tower, which the painter moved closer to the Alcázar than it really is, and the dome of the Jesuit church; at left lie the Tagus meadows, the Alcántara bridge and the castle of San Servando. The scene is lit by the golden light of dusk, with thick impasto in the lights and a hazy distance.
The painting came on the market in Madrid in January 1978, when it was sold at Durán Sala de Arte for 3,300,000 pesetas to the Barcelona collector Luis Rotellar. The Bilbao museum bought it from him in 2004 as its first work by the artist, to fill a gap in its landscape holdings. It has since appeared in the touring exhibition De Goya a Gauguin, been the subject of a long study by Enrique Arias Anglés in the museum's 2008 Bulletin, and featured in a 2021 UNED television programme on geography and painting.