Fernando Zóbel’s En Conde de Ibarra III is more than a painting—it’s a quiet window into the artist’s world, and one of the most evocative highlights of Salcedo Auctions’ upcoming Under the Tree: The Wish List sale. While Zóbel is celebrated for his refined abstractions and contemplative explorations of space and motion, this work draws us back to something more grounded: a luminous fragment of Seville, the city where he kept a studio and found endless visual rhythm in its streets and courtyards.
A young Fernando Zóbel during his time at Harvard, Massachusetts.
At first glance, the painting seems deceptively restrained—a soft Seville streetscape rendered in Zóbel’s signature economy of form. The façades of the buildings on the upper center of the canvas converge toward a vanishing point, creating a quiet corridor that feels alive with unseen movement. It’s as if we are watching the afterglow of life passing through—a procession of people whose presence is felt through light and line rather than figure and face. Through the architecture, Zóbel makes us sense motion itself, transforming geometry into human rhythm.
Running along that path is a subtle greenish tone, an ever so slight wash of paint that at first seems abstract but soon draws the eye and the imagination. At Salcedo’s exclusive vernissage held last Thursday, 20 November, Zóbel’s grand-nephew Álvaro Zóbel Padilla offered a new insight that illuminates the work in an extraordinary way. He observed that the green could in fact represent the line of trees that still front the old palace of the Conde de Ibarra, which is now believed to be the very building depicted in the painting. That revelation bridges the artist’s abstraction with a vivid sense of place, rooting Zóbel’s delicate brushwork in the living landscape of Seville.
Casa de los Condes de Ibarra, located at San José Street at Seville, sparked Zóbel’s inspiration.
Álvaro also noted that Fernando Zóbel’s studio was located at Plaza de Pilatos, just a short walk from Calle Conde de Ibarra and the old palace itself. It’s not hard to imagine the artist passing this spot daily, noticing the dappled light through the trees, the changing tones of the street through the seasons, and the quiet dialogue between architecture and air. Those impressions seem to have settled in this painting—condensed, abstracted, and transmuted into the tranquil geometry that Zóbel mastered so well.
The atmosphere of En Conde de Ibarra III is soft and fog-like, evoking a winter morning in Seville when mist diffuses the light. A faint streak of blue cuts through the haze, as though the sky were just beginning to break open. That fleeting brightness gives the painting its emotional lift—a whisper of warmth and clarity within the cool calm of the scene.
Plaza de Pilatos
Through this new understanding of its setting and origins, En Conde de Ibarra III reveals itself as far more than a formal study in line and tone. It is a record of daily passage, a memory of the street the artist likely knew by heart, and a meditation on how light, nature, and human movement coexist. Outwardly minimalist yet profoundly layered, this rare Seville painting captures Zóbel’s quiet genius: the ability to find poetry in perspective and eternity in the fleeting shimmer of an ordinary day.
Presented in association with Exclusive Bank Partner UnionBank Elite, Under the Tree: The Wish List is on Saturday, 29 November, live and online at 2PM, NEX Tower, 6786 Ayala Avenue, Makati City. View catalogue https://members.salcedoauctions.com/auction/under-the-tree_nov2025_2PM
A morning online auction on the same day featuring more accessibly-priced pieces ‘The Holiday Sale,’ starts at 10am. View catalogue: https://members.salcedoauctions.com/auction/under-the-tree_nov2025_10AM
For inquiries or to register to bid, email info@salcedoauctions.com or call 09171250307 / 09178946550.
