Calle Espalter
Since 1887 the street has borne the name of the painter Joaquín Espalter y Rull (Sitges, 1809 – Madrid, 1880), a figure of Spanish Romantic painting. Settled in Madrid from 1842, he decorated the Great Hall of the Central University and the offices of the Congress of Deputies, and was honorary court painter to Isabella II.
Between the plaza de Murillo and calle de Alfonso XII, south of the Jerónimos district and hard against the Botanical Garden, runs calle de Espalter. The name arrived in 1887 and recalls the Catalan painter Joaquín Espalter y Rull.
He was born in Sitges in 1809 and learned his craft at the Escola de la Llotja in Barcelona. By late 1829 he was in Paris, in the studio of Antoine-Jean Gros. From 1833 he joined the Catalan Nazarenes in Rome, a circle that sought to return to painting the devout air of the old masters.
In 1842 he settled in Madrid. A year later, his ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ earned him the title of academician of merit at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and in 1846 Isabella II named him honorary court painter. His mark was left above all on large decorated surfaces: the paintings of the Teatro Español, the offices of the presidency of the Congress and the vault of the Great Hall of the Central University, where he combined ten allegorical figures with twenty-nine portraits.
He died in Madrid on 16 January 1880. Anyone who wants to see him up close can look for his paintings in the Museo del Prado and the Museum of Romanticism.