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In the first decade of the 20th century, Beruete often travelled to Plantío de los Infantes every day, which her wife María Teresa Moret had inherited from her grandfather Gaspar de Remisa y Miarons. There he painted views of the Guadarrama and Madrid.

Among the buildings of the city, the violaceous dome of San Francisco el Grande and the Royal Palace stand out, the former's façade bathed in light and the latter's in violet-tinged shadow, following the Impressionist style. The artist did not analytically fragment his brushstrokes but instead used them in a varied fashion to depict the agitation of a restless, windy atmosphere, which can be perceived through the movement of the vegetation, the appearance of the clouds and the direction of the smoke trail. The layering of dark tones in the foreground and lighter ones in the background, with slight pinkish shades tingeing the sky, accelerates the succession of depths of planes. The moist greens in the middle ground correspond to the countryside in the spring of 1909, when Beruete regularly worked in the Plantío. Perhaps bothered by the wind and the cold, he executed this landscape quickly, one of the most unsettled among those from this period.

This painting appeared in the posthumous Beruete exhibition held in 1912 in the studio of his friend Joaquín Sorolla. Even though the stretcher was changed years ago, a photograph in the museum archive documents the same kind of label used for the paintings with higher numbers, with a handwritten "620". Another photograph taken by Mariano Moreno in 1912 enables us to locate the painting, with the number of its label on the side, catalogued as View of Madrid from Plantío de los Infantes.

The painter's son, who bore his father's exact name, cited it as Madrid from El Pardo in his donation letter to Manuel Losada, the museum director, on 30 April 1915. The generosity of the Beruete family, from which other Spanish institutions have benefited as well, had led his son to think about donating "four or five works". "For the time being," he said, "I am contented and satisfied that this work appears in Bilbao; it is not a large work, just a study from a long series that my father made in the lands of Castile." Despite the elegant modesty with which he refers to the painting, it is larger than many of his oil paintings, and as the last work in his life, it boasts extraordinary quality. Beruete fils, a connoisseur of Spanish 19th-century painting, who married a daughter of Darío de Regoyos, was aware that the presence in Bilbao of paintings from that other great Impressionist would mean that the public would inevitably compare them.

Beruete painted this motif other times as well. In On the Outskirts of Madrid with the City in the Background, the city is a bit further away but the royal Palace appears with the same angle. Another View of Madrid from Plantío de los Infantes dated 1911 was displayed in the 1912 exhibition. [Javier Barón]

Selected bibliography

• Gaya Nuño, Juan Antonio. La pintura española en los museos provinciales. Madrid, Aguilar, 1964. pp. 330-332.
• Bengoechea, Javier de. Catálogo de arte moderno y contemporáneo del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Bilbao, Banco de Vizcaya, 1980. p. 33. (Con el título Vista de Madrid).
• 50 ans d'art espagnol, 1880-1936 [Cat. exp.]. Bordeaux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, 1984. p. 73, n° cat. 7.
• Tesoros del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : pintura, 1400-1939 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, El Viso, 1989,
• Tres grandes maestros del paisaje decimonónico español : Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, Carlos de Haes, Aureliano de Beruete [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Ayuntamiento, Concejalía de Cultura, 1990. pp. 402-403, n° cat. 110.
• Da Goya a Picasso : la pittura spagnola dell'ottocento [Cat. exp.]. Milano, Mazzotta, 1991.
• Joos, Petra. Francisco Iturrino, 1864-1924 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Fundación Mapfre, 1996. p. 37.
• Zugaza, Miguel ... [et al.]. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : maestros antiguos y modernos. Bilbao, Fundación Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa = Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa Fundazioa, 1999. p. 168.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. pp. 112-113.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. pp. 112-113.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. pp. 112-113.
• Paisajes esenciales [Cat. exp.]. Huesca, Centro de Arte y Naturaleza-Fundación Beulas, 2007. p. 23. (Con el título Madrid desde el Prado)
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 330-332, n° cat. 64
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 112-113, n° cat. 78b.
• Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. pp. 112-113, n° cat. 78b.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 112-113.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 112-113.
• 110 Años 110 Obras [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 188-189, sin n° cat.
• 110 Ans 110 Oeuvres [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 188-189, sin n° cat.
• 110 Urte 110 Artelan [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 188-189, sin n° cat.
• 110 Years 110 Works [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 188-189, sin n° cat.