A descendent of the writer Juan Valera, Lorenzo Coullaut Valera was the patriarch of a long line of sculptors. He was succeeded by his son Federico (b. Madrid, 1912 – d. La Granja, Segovia, 1989) and later by his grandson Lorenzo (b. Madrid, 1944 – d. La Granja, Segovia, 2002). His work remained within the tradition of academic statuary, rooted in nineteenth-century discourses, albeit with modernist touches towards the end of his career. Although Coullaut was born in Andalusia and spent time in France – his father was a French engineer and Lorenzo moved to Nantes with his family in 1880 – he settled and set up his studio in La Granja de San Idelfonso in the mid-1880s. He is known to have studied with the Sevillian sculptor Antonio Susillo and with Agustín Querol. In 1897, he won his first award (an honorary mention) at the 1897 National Exhibition for a bust of his uncle Juan Valera, the novelist, whom he was to portray on other occasions.

Coullaut accepted quite a large number of commissions for public works, for which he created formally academic structures. Examples include his Monument to Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (Seville, 1910); Monument to Campoamor (Madrid, 1914); Monument to Enrique Peinador (Mondariz, Pontevedra, 1919); Monument to the Álvarez Quintero Brothers (Madrid, 1934); Monument to Cervantes in the Plaza de España (Madrid, 1926-1930), completed by his son Federico and the Monument to Juan Valera (Madrid, 1928).

In 2002, the National Glass Centre Foundation organised an anthological exhibition of the work of Lorenzo Coullaut Valera and his decendants. In 1990, a museum of his work was opened at the Morón Gateway in Marchena.

Isabel Tejeda

José Echegaray Eizaguirre can probably best be described as a polymath, an aspect of his personality that is reflected in most likenesses made of him. He was a civil engineer, physicist, mathematician, science writer, playwright, economist and politician. In all of these fields, he was remarkably prolific and knowledgeable, and he became extraordinarily well-known in his own lifetime.

Born in Madrid in 1832, Echegaray was the son of José Echegaray Lacosta, a doctor from Aragon, and Manuela Eizaguirre Chale from Navarre. He lived in Madrid until he was five years old, when his father moved to Murcia to teach in a high school. In 1848, he graduated from the College of Civil Engineering in Madrid, where he was top of his class. After a short period working in Almería as an engineer, he returned to Madrid in 1854, at the beginning of the Bienio Progresista, the two-year period during which the Progressive Party sought to reform the political system under Queen Isabella II. From then on, he worked as a lecturer at College of Civil Engineering and took up permanent residence in Madrid. He married Ana Estrada, with whom he had two children.

During this period he became keenly interested in the new discipline of political economy, and engaged passionately in the discussions of mid-century Madrid. He became a great advocate of free trade, calling for Spain to open its markets up to the exterior. He took an active part in several free-trade associations, including the Free Society of Political Economics and the Association for Customs Reform, which he created together with other leading fellow thinkers. With another engineer and lecturer at the college, Gabriel Rodríguez, he founded El Economista to spread his ideas. He was also a ceaseless advocate of individual rights and the legitimacy of social differences based on talent and personal effort.

In parallel, he published numerous studies on mathematics —'his first, most intense and most enduring interest'— and physics. As he himself wrote in his memoirs, Recuerdos, 'mathematics was, and is, one of the great preoccupations of my life; if I could have been rich or were I rich today, if I did not have to earn a daily living working, I would probably have gone away to a very cheerful and comfortable country house and devoted myself exclusively to cultivating the mathematical sciences [...]'. He managed to combine his mathematical studies with the exercise of his profession and all his other activities (including literature, journalism and politics). In 1865, he joined the Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences. In his acceptance speech, 'La historia de las matemáticas puras en nuestra España', he argued that religious and political intolerance had prevented Spain from making any contribution whatsoever to mathematics. The talk sparked heated debate in the press.

With the Revolution of 1868, Echegaray became actively involved in politics. He was appointed Director General of Public Works, Agriculture, Industry and Commerce at the Ministry of Public Works, then headed by Ruiz Zorrilla, The Directorate General was allocated such a wide range of powers, that it became almost a ministry in itself, and Echegaray’s success in the office catapulted him to a position as candidate for Congress in 1869.

During the years of the Sexenio Democrático, he was elected to congress at almost all the elections and spoke vehemently in parliamentary debates, arguing against protectionism in the economic order and in favour of the supremacy of liberties and individual rights before the Law. In his speeches and arguments, he showed himself to be a great orator with a broad dialectic ability, often using metaphors from geology and physics.

Echegaray served as Minister of Public Works between July 1869 and January 1871, in the two successive governments of Prime Minister Prim. From July to September 1872, under Ruiz Zorrilla, he held the portfolio for Economic Development for the third time. His major contribution at the ministry was his law on the free creation of banks and corporations and his laws on railway construction. His support for state intervention to extend the railroad network departed from the precepts of free trade, sparking strong criticism from the opposition. He also took an interest in improving education, the instruction of women and teachers' salaries.

When Ruiz Zorrilla became prime minister in June 1872, Echegaray was again appointed Minister of Public Works (from June to December 1872) and later of Finance (from December 1872 to February 1873). In January 1874, following Manuel Pavía's coup, he was once more appointed Minister of Finance in the government presided over by General Serrano. His most important political decision came with the Decree of 19 March 1874, which granted the Banco de España a monopoly on the issue of banknotes for the entire nation, establishing a single legal tender to replace the many different notes issued by banks in the provinces. As a reward for the powers it had been given, the Banco de España awarded the Government a loan of 125 million pesetas. The decision, taken a time of extreme crisis for the Spanish Treasury, once again ran contrary to Echegaray's free market principles.

From an early age, another of Echegaray's great interests —and the one for which he is now best remembered— was the theatre. He published his first drama, El libro talonario [The Chequebook] in February 1874, and over the next thirty years he wrote at least two plays a year, which ran with uninterrupted success on the stages of Madrid. In 1904, he shared the Nobel Prize for Literature with Frédéric Mistral, and in March 1905 a great homage was organised in his honour.

He also devoted himself with great zeal to writing on science, a task for which he was particularly gifted. Until a very advanced age, he published informative articles on modern scientific discoveries in specialist journals and the daily press.

In 1905, he was again appointed Minister for Finance in the government of Montero Ríos. Echegaray was a founding member of the Free Teaching Institution, president of the Ateneo in Madrid, member of the Royal Academy of the Language, the Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry and the Spanish Mathematical Society, professor of Mathematical Physics at the Central University, senator for life, managing director (1908-1913) and later chairman (1913-1916) of the Compañía Arrendataria de Tabacos [the state tobacco monopoly] and a Knight of the Golden Fleece, among other distinctions. He was fortunate enough to retain all his mental faculties until the end of his days.

Elena Serrano García