JOAN BUSQUETS I JANÉ (Barcelona, 1874-1949).
Corner furniture, 1909.
In walnut and root wood.
Measurements: 228 x 60 x 65 cm.
Modernist corner cabinet designed by Joan Busquets, one of the great cabinetmakers and decorators of Catalan modernism, whose designs are a reflection of the welfare and aspirations of the booming bourgeoisie, and are distinguished by the use of expensive hardwoods and by the marquetry and carving work. We are faced with a piece of furniture structured in two markedly differentiated bodies: the lower one houses four drawers arranged with typically modernist vegetal handles; the upper one, conceived as a closet, has four shelves inside. Its exterior, richly decorated, presents a typically modernist design, worked from floral motifs in marquetry, sinuous organic forms and metal applications in its center, with bulbous forms of remarkable organicity. Once again, the door has a metal handle in the shape of a vegetable leaf. The entire piece of furniture is raised on floral-inspired legs, and is framed by fine and delicate moldings that determine the undulating forms of the piece.
The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya conserves and exhibits a remarkable collection of projects and furniture by Joan Busquets. Furniture, ceiling lamps and other pieces are part of this set, as well as more than 150 original drawings-sketches made by hand by the author, in watercolor, ink and graphite pencil, where Joan Busquets highlights his mastery and where we see several examples very similar to the works of this set that we are auctioning.
Furniture designer and decorator, Joan Busquets is currently considered one of the most representative figures of Catalan modernism. He began his training in the family workshop, and then studied at the Escuela de La Llotja in Barcelona, where his teachers were Guitart and Lostaló. In the 1895-96 academic year he obtained a scholarship that allowed him to travel around Spain, which he obtained thanks to a project for a Renaissance-style bookcase-cabinet. He exhibited furniture projects for the first time at the Barcelona Exhibition of 1896. The workshop of Joan Busquets was one of the most outstanding of modernist Catalonia and is currently, together with the production of Gaspar Homar, the most representative testimony of the furniture and decoration of Catalan modernism. He was president of the Fomento de las Artes Decorativas between 1918 and 1921, and supervised the manufacture of furniture for Gaudí's Casa Calvet. Works by Busquets can currently be found in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Güell Palace in Barcelona, the National Museum of Decorative Arts and the Museum of Catalan Modernism in Barcelona, among others, as well as in several important private collections.