Bartolomé Maura is considered the leading engraver of reproductions. A specialist in chalcographic engraving, he showed a predilection for painting from the Spanish school. He was extraordinarily skilled at capturing the colouring of paintings through the play of light and shadows or the choice of inks and their shades. He also engraved numerous portraits of public figures of his time, as well as medals and coins, among other projects.

A descendant of painter and intaglio engraver Juan Montaner y Cladera, he began training at the Provincial Academy of the Fine Arts in the Balearic Islands in 1861, where he was a disciple of Guillermo Torres and Francisco Parietti. In 1868, he moved to Madrid to continue studies at the Special School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving under Federico de Madrazo and Carlos Luis Ribera. He also attended Domingo Martínez Aparici’s engraving classes.

As one of the most renowned and awardwinning engravers of the last third of the nineteenth century, he became administrator of Calcografía Nacional (the national chalcography bureau) in 1872. He held that post until 1898, when he won the contest for Artistic Director of the Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre (the national mint). In June 1887, he entered Banco de España’s banknote production department as second engraver, becoming first engraver in 1898, when Martínez Aparici retired. One year later, he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando as an academician with an entry lecture titled: On the Convenience of the Rebirth in Spain of Chalcographic Engraving, also known as Intaglio.

Virginia Albarrán Martín

Cabarrús was a noted dignitary in the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV. He was a specialist who wrote on matters of economic policy as part of the second generation of the Enlightenment in Spain. He also designed financial projects, and as such created the bonds known as vales reales in 1780, during the war with Britain, and founded the Banco Nacional de San Carlos, the first bank authorised to issue bank-notes in Spain. In 1790 he fell out of political and social favour. He was later rehabilitated by prime minister Godoy after several years of serious problems which were never fully clarified, but which included trial and imprisonment.

He was born in Bayonne in 1752, to a family of traders and seafarers that hailed originally from Navarre. In 1771 he travelled to Valencia to learn about trade in Spain at the firm of Antonio Galavert. Shortly afterwards he secretly married Galavert's fourteen-year-old daughter Maria Antonia, a match opposed by both their families. They had a daughter named Teresa and two sons.

In 1772 he moved to Carabanchel de Arriba, a village near Madrid, where Pierre Galavert, a relative of his wife's, owned a soap factory. Records of bills of trade and permits for the export of silver coins show that in 1775 he was doing business with the firm of Viuda de Lalanne e Hijos. He went into partnership with Jean Aguirre, a trader in wool and treasurer of the Canal Imperial de Aragón. The transactions that they did together included the exporting of wool to France and Britain. He also worked with Le Couteulx, one of the biggest firms engaged in trade between Cadiz, Rouen and París.

His growing prosperity as a trader and banker brought him into contact with the followers of the Enlightenment and thus into the main circles of power. He joined the Economic Society of Madrid in 1776. At its informal meetings, held at the home of Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, he met Jovellanos, with whom he struck up a friendship that lasted until the time of the Peninsular War. Cabarrús was much more highly educated than was usual among the traders and bankers of the time. He strove to rise above the world of commerce and join ideological and political elite.

In 1779 Spain and France went to war with Britain over the American War of Independence. The government soon found itself in need of funds to pay for the war, as a British naval blockade had reduced remittances from the Indies and the amount of cash in circulation in Spain had fallen sharply. Cabarrús came up with the idea of vales reales: a hybrid between government bonds and paper money. He convinced the Count of Gausa, who was Treasury Minister at the time, to issue these bonds for three purposes: to bring in revenue for the treasury, to serve as a means of payment for the public (in large-scale operations at least) and to provide their owners with interest at an attractive rate of 4% per annum. There were three issues during the reign of Charles III: in 1780, 1781 and 1782. With his initiative and powers of conviction, Cabarrús managed to persuade some major players to involve themselves in the operation: mostly French trading houses operating in Madrid and Cadiz.

Uncertainty concerning the outcome of the war led to a drop in the traded value of vales reales towards the end of 1782. The Banco Nacional de San Carlos was founded in June that same year. It was the result of the personal efforts of Cabarrús to set up an official lender in the form of a joint-stock company. Its functions included the issuing of bank-notes, the prepayment of funds to the state (mainly concerned with the administration of provisions for the army), the provision of credit to cover the expenses of the monarchy abroad and the discounting and negotiating of bills with private individuals. A further objective was the funding of public works projects, but the main purpose was to pay for vales reales in silver. In 1784 the Banco de San de Carlos was granted a monopoly on silver mining, which brought substantial profits. In 1785 it obtained the contract to create the Compañía de Filipinas, in which it made a major investment. Both these projects went against the policy of economic liberalism that Cabarrús advocated. Between 1780 and 1790 Cabarrús became one of the most socially and economically influential individuals in Madrid outside the circles of Spain's grandees, but he also began to become unpopular. Various factors came together to undermine his success.

Following the death of Charles III in 1789, treasury minister Lerena, a personal enemy of Cabarrús, urged the bank's shareholders to convene an extraordinary general meeting to examine the latter’s record in managing its affairs. Cabarrús and the other directors of the bank were dismissed and shortly afterwards he was jailed for a cash smuggling offence allegedly committed back in the days of his youth.

With the accession of Charles IV to the throne and the upsets caused by the French Revolution, the political circumstances had changed. Opponents of the enlightenment-based policies in place saw this as an opportunity. Cabarrús lost support at court and his prosecution under civil jurisdiction went ahead. He spent five years in prison without ever coming to trial. In 1795 he was released and reinstated as a director by right of the Banco Nacional de San Carlos, when senior judges found procedural defects in the case against him and new treasury minister Diego de Gardoqui withdrew the charges. At the same time the war with the French National Convention came to an end and Prime Minister Godoy introduced a more pro-enlightenment domestic policy.

Godoy fell temoporarily out of favour, but when he recovered power (with the support of Spain's most reactionary party) he dismissed and jailed pro-enlightenment minsters, and Cabarrús was sent into internal exile in Burgos. From 1801 to 1807 he lived in Barcelona, where he undertook a number of industrial projects. On the outbreak of the popular uprising against the French in 1808 he met with Jovellanos in Zaragoza. Cabarrús declared his support for the 'legitimist' cause, but a few days later he was attacked by a group of insurrectionists because of his French birth and his known anti-traditionalist sympathies. This seems to have led him to change his position and join the cause of Joseph Bonaparte, who appointed him treasury minister in July that year. He still held that post when he died in Seville in 1810.

Extract from: P. Tedde de Lorca: Diccionario biográfico español, Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2009-2013.

Paloma Gómez Pastor