José Villegas y Cordero (Spanish, 1848-1921)


Portrait of Caridad Fé y Alba inscribed, signed and dated 'à Caridad Fé y Alba/Villegas/1906 (lower left)oil on canvas160 x 85cm (63 x 33 7/16in).
|Caridad Fé y Alba, seen here as a young girl, was from a prominent Spanish family. In 1925 she married the influential lawyer Don Silverio de la Torre y Eguia, a Liberal Socialist and later member of the democratically elected Republican Government, who was also painted by Sorolla. Their son, Fernando de la Torre, was evacuated to England during the Spanish Civil War and was billeted with Hugh Fraser Stewart, then Dean of Trinity College, and father of Frida Stewart, the well-known anti-fascist and Communist activist who had formed local Spanish Aid committees at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and driven an ambulance in Spain in 1937 to 1938 on behalf of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee. Fernando remained in Britain and died in 2015 but always remained a proud Basque and Spanish Republican.This painting is likely to be the companion to the portrait by Villegas of Caridad's sister, Mariquita Fe y Alba, also painted in 1906 and offered at Christie's New York, 25 October 1996, lot 195.