El Retiro.

(Buenos Aires. 1841)

Lithograph on paper. Measurements: 26.6 x 39 cm / 10.47 x15.35 in. The work was professionally restored. It is displayed framed. Moores, n. 127. 

The scene shows us the entire society gathered at a civic party. In the center of the square located in front of El Retiro -where the military barracks was located-, and under an arch over which the national flag flames, a horseman in the middle of a race participates in the ring game. Different characters on foot and on horseback enjoy the show. Members of the diverse popular sectors gather in the square, indicated by their clothing. The plastic resolution of the complex scene reveals the qualities of its author, the Frenchman Pellegrini. This print is part of the album "Memories of the River Plate", which Pellegrini himself made in his lithographic workshop Litografia de Las Artes, in 1841.

Engineer, painter, lithographer, journalist and landowner, Carlos Enrique Pellegrini was born in 1800 in Chambery, Duchy of Savoy, and arrived in Buenos Aires in 1828, where he became an important witness of River Plate life. In 1829 two of his works were transferred to the lithographic plates of César Hipólito Bacle, who taught him the trade that years later, he took up again with such success when editing his album. The truth is that in the 1830s Pellegrini had retired to the countryside dedicating himself to rural activity and it was in 1841 that he published his masterpiece: Memories of the River Plate.

Bibliography: Guillermo H. Moores: Pictures and views of the city of Buenos Aires. Munic. of the City of Buenos Aires, 1945, fig. 127, p. 105. S. On. 5. LBM