An exhibition to celebrate Sant Jordi at the Girona History Museum

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

With a small selection of works from the municipal collection

We celebrate Sant Jordi showing a small selection of works from the municipal collection at the Museum entrance, with objects that evidence the importance of reading in different historical moments of women's lives.

On display are The Joys of Sant Jordi from 1922, a poetic composition of popular and religious character that praises the virtues, life, and miracles of the saint, accompanied by a score containing the musical melody with which they should be sung.

The Joys of Sant Jordi, Patron Saint of Catalonia, 1922
Lyrics by Artur Masriera and music by Joan Salvat
Publication of the Spiritual League of the Mother of God of Montserrat, Barcelona.
Engraving
MHG 03419

Also present is Le Journal des demoiselles from 1843, a Parisian newspaper founded by Jeanne-Justine Fouqueau de Pussy and published between 1833 and 1922, aimed at the young female audience of the French bourgeoisie, with content on fashion, domestic economy, advice, and chronicles, intended to educate young women with the moral and Christian principles of the time. This copy includes a pattern for floral embroidery.

Journal des demoiselles, 1843
Paris: Au bureau du journal, 1833-1922
And presiding over the space is the painting by Joan Serra, Two Women Reading, which conveys the pleasure of reading. Serra was a Catalan painter trained at the Llotja of Barcelona with the master Labarta. There he met the members of the Evolucionistes group (1917-1923), Joan Cortès, Alfred Sisquella, Francesc Elias, among others, with whom he often exhibited. Marked by the aesthetic principles of Noucentisme, they rejected the programmatic and classicist orthodoxy of this movement and promoted a new realist wing of Noucentisme. They shared a great admiration for Cézanne and a taste for earthy tones, as we can see in this work.
The painter, with his thick strokes, intense palette, and loose brushwork, exhibited periodically at Sala Parés. Apart from trips to Madrid and Paris, he developed his pictorial work in Barcelona.

JOAN SERRA MELGOSA (Lleida, 1899 – Barcelona, 1970)
Two Women Reading, undated
Oil on wood
MHG 14654
Rafael and María Teresa Santos Torroella Collection. Girona City Council