Furniture for the pantheon of Comillas (1878-1881)

Eusebi Güell returned to Barcelona from the fair of Paris of 1878 very impressed by the showcase of the glover's shop Comella. He looked for Gaudí and entrusted him a few furniture for Sobrellano's palace, that his father-in-law, the first Marquis of Comillas (1817-1883), had entrusted to Joan Martorell i Montells and began to built in his villa of origin, Comillas, in Spain. As the architect and companion of Gaudí Camil Oliveras i Gensana (1849-1898) already he had this order, the furniture that Antoni Gaudí should do were destined to the pantheon, a neighboring construction to Sobrellano's palace. The Marquis had entrusted this pantheon to bury his first-born one, Antonio, born in Cuba in 1852 and dead man in Madrid in 1876. He had entrusted the project to Joan Martorell. Camil Oliveras dealt the direction of the work. And the construction was done by the bricklayer Josep Pardo i Casanovas, the same one that with his nephew Josep Bardier i Pardo will be employed later at the estate Güell, at the park Güell and at Bellesguard. "La Ilustración Española y Americana" of September 8, 1881 published two engravings, of the exterior and of the interior, and description, without mentioning Gaudí's furniture: “Este nuevo y bello templo, todo de piedra labrada, es de estilo ojival del segundo período, con gallarda torrecilla en la fachada principal y ábside de severos sillares en la parte posterior; su puerta de ingreso imita con gran semejanza las de nuestras catedrales góticas, aunque es menos rica la ornamentación general; las columnas, las ventanas, los botareles, todas las principales partes del edificio están sujetas al ideal arquitectónico que ha presidido a su construcción. El interior es bellísimo y rico: la nave, espaciosa, que se extiende bajo alta bóveda, termina en la parte inferior del ábside en un precioso altar de bronce dorado al fuego , construido en los talleres del Sr. Isaura, de Barcelona, con sujeción a dibujo del Sr. Martorell.” On August 28, 1881 he blessed the chapel-pantheon and celebrated the first Eucharist the Ilmo. Mr Vicente Calvo y Valera, bishop of Santander, with assistance of that of Zamora and of Cayetano Fernandez, precentor of the cathedral of Seville. At the solemn act there was present the Spanish royal family, which was spending in Comillas the season of baths, and the chaplain of the family of the Marquis of Comillas, the poet mossèn Jacint Verdaguer, who likewise celebrated several Eucharist. Between1889 and 1892, Eduard Llorens i Masdeu (Barcelona, 1837-1912) painted an oil, for the lounge of Sobrellano's palace. The historian of the art Maria Arnús has qualified it of Nazarene style, of the German school that founded in Rome in 1812 San Isidro's Confraternity and it was trying to live through the simple idealism of the Italian painters of the XIVth, which they were considering to be most adapted for the religious art. In the first plane, it is possible to see a couch designed by Gaudí, the small princess of Asturias, Mercedes, and the ex-queen Isabel II. To the left of the bishops, Ft. Jacint Verdaguer, dressed with dalmatic, officiates as deacon. To the right of the altar, they head the guests the kings Alphonso XII and his second wife Maria Christina of Hapsburg. Behind, the sisters of the king, and therefore the most serene infantas of Spain, Peace, Elizabeth and Eulalia. To the fund, Claudi Lopez Bru, son of the Marquis of Comillas, and his young wife seventeen-year-old Maria Gayón Barrie, whom he had just married on March 23, 1881.