The tower of the Giralda, Seville

The tower of the Giralda, Seville   

William Gauci after David Roberts, 1837 

Hand-coloured lithograph 

Seville Cathedral made a strong impression on David Roberts during his stay in Seville from May to September 1833. Writing to a friend in Edinburgh, he described it as one of the most magnificent buildings in the world, noting that its belltower alone would justify a journey from London. Roberts captured the tower from several viewpoints in drawings, watercolour and oil paintings, as well as prints. 

  In this lithograph, Roberts depicts the Giralda from the Calle Mateo Gago. The lower portion of the tower is the remaining structure of the minaret that belonged to the Almohad mosque that once stood here. The upper section is a later Christian addition, crowned by a weather vane known as the Giraldillo, after which the tower is named.   

The tower’s proportions and décor are rendered faithfully. However, the foreground scene is imaginary. In reality, the street was still narrow at the time (until urban changes led to its widening in 1929), and it was then called Calle Borceguinería, after the ‘borceguineros’ or bootmakers who lived there. Roberts expanded the street to create a kind of stage for picturesque groupings of Spanish men and women in traditional attire. Various shop signs are visible, indicating a tailor, an artist and a furrier. The numerous figures add anecdotal charm to the view and serve to accentuate the scale of the 104-metre-tall tower. The impression of an urban scene as a theatrical stage is characteristic in Roberts’s images of Spain. They reflect his early career as a painter of stage scenery in the theatres of Glasgow, Edinburgh and London in the 1820s.   

Roberts’s most important depiction of the Giralda was a large format oil painting. When it was exhibited in London in 1834, it was described by the press as a work of a man of genius. It presented novel views of Spain to British audiences and marked Roberts’s breakthrough in London. He never returned to Spain but continued to produce Spanish-themed pictures well into the 1850s. 

Title: The Tower of the Giralda, Seville.  

Author/Artist: William Gauci (fl. 1825-1854, lithographer) after a drawing by David Roberts (1796-1864).  

Technique and Material: Hand-coloured lithograph, paper.  

Size: 400 x 280 mm (image), 550 x 370 mm (page). 

Published: Plate 14 from David Roberts, Picturesque sketches in Spain taken during the years 1832 & 1833. London: Hodgson & Graves, 1837.  

Date: 1837. 

Marks and Inscriptions: on the plate, bottom right: The Giralda Seville. 

Institution: Barry Ife Collection.