3-002-634 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Arab Fantasia, 1867. In 1892 the municipal government of Barcelona authorized Fortuny to return to North Africa to refresh his memory for painting the "Battle of Wad-Ras." He left Rome in September and spent two months making drawings and studies in oils and watercolors near Tangier, Tetuan, Fondach, and Wad-Ras. On his return to Europe in December he spent several months in Barcelona at the home of his early benefactor, Buenaventura Palau, to whom he presented the first version of this subject. Subsequently, he painted a variant which entered the collection of M. Foll of Geneva and eventually that of William H. Vanderbilt of New York (Sale, April 18-19, 1945, no. 43).