La Puerta del Sol, Madrid

La Puerta del Sol, Madrid 

John Frederick Lewis, 1836 

Tinted lithograph 

The Puerta del Sol established itself as a lively hub in early nineteenth-century Madrid. Virtually nothing of Lewis’s view, looking south at the east end, has survived to the present day. The building to the left appears to represent the façade of the Augustinian Convent of San Felipe el Real, demolished in 1838 following the disestablishment of the monasteries by Juan Álvarez Mendizábal three years earlier. The monastery was built on slightly higher ground, and the vantage point made it popular as a meeting place for gossip and the circulation of news. Lewis shows it as a commercial as well as a social centre. 

 The buildings on the south side, at the head of what is now the Carrera de San Jerónimo were also demolished in 1847 as part of a project to improve the area around the Casa de Correos (Post Office), built between 1766 and 1768, subsequently home to the Ministry of Government and now the seat of the President of the Comunidad de Madrid. Lewis completely ignores that new building off to the right, beyond the edge of the plate, and prefers to concentrate on the human interest of the scene—ordinary Spanish people, including market traders with their barrels next to the fountain, women in traditional dress, priests, muleteers and beggars, who came to be seen as authentic Spanish types. Several of the shop fronts bear signs of Lewis’s characteristic reversed letter ‘s’. 

Title: La Puerta del Sol, Madrid. 

Author/Artist: John Frederick Lewis (1804-1876, artist and lithographer).  

Technique and Material: Tinted lithograph on paper. 

Dimensions: 260 x 360 mm (image), 550 x 370 mm (page). 

Published: Plate 6 from John Frederick Lewis, Sketches of Spain and Spanish character made during his tour in that country in the years 1833-4. London: F G Moon and John F Lewis, [1836]. 

Date: 1836. 

Marks and Inscriptions: on the plate, bottom right: ‘La Puerta del Sol. Madrid’. 

Institution: Barry Ife Collection.