Barcelona & Catalonia Cinderellas

Thank you very much for your comments.
As I understand, the "Pro-Sevilla" cinderellas are Spanish Civil War charity stamps, nothing to do with the Sevilla Iberoamerican Fair. I know next to nothing about them, no interest at all for me. Anyway, being neither Barcelona, nor Catalan cinderellas, this is not the place to discuss them, but the "More Spanish cinderella" thread.

As for the Valencia tax stamps their use is identical to the Barcelona stamps. The reason of the issue, as you correctly point, was to finance the flood control works. They have some interest, and there are some studies written on them by our Valentian friends. Its use reaches well into our days.

On the macer cinderella discus means sport (the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium was first built then), Hermes the trade and communication and Pallas Athenea the culture. You must understand that we Catalans trace our history back to 580 BC on the days on the foundation of the Greek colony of Emporion ("Market", today: Empúries) on the North-East Catalan coast. So, the said "fron Greece we came" is quite common among cultivated people. In addition, Barcelona was born as a Roman colony in 10 BC. For this reason, Roman and Greek iconography are very common here.
On the background of the macer you can see Barcelona skyline as it looked in 1929 (quite different today, I'm affraid!). On the right of the image you can see the Montjuïc mountain (literally: Jew's Mountain) where fair venues were located. Being also the 1992 Olympic Games main site, today it's a very popular urban park.

Going a little back, as a preparation por "the big trade fair", some lesser events were organised. The first one was the 1920 Sample's Trade Fair. It wasn't held in Montjuïc, but down town on the site of 1888 Barcelona World Show.
A nice cinderella was issued, showing a Hermes with a roaring sea (the Mediterranean) on the background, meaning the maritime trade that set the foundations of Barcelona's prosperity.




The design, clearly hellenistic, is quite different from the older cinderellas, as people's taste had changed. Greek Empúries ruins have just been discovered and everything that related to Greece and the Mediterranean was very popular. It's the artistic movement that we call Nou-centisme, from year nineteen hundred.

On the following year, a very similar cinderella was issued, though isn't as beautiful as the 1920 one. There are some different colours.

In October 1923 a Home Fourniture Show was held a the Alfons XIII and Victòria Eugènia Palaces of Montjuïc, two venues built for the 1929 International Fair.

I know these four cinderella:









On the first one, there can be seen a XIXth century bed. The three last ones were designed by R. canals and printed by "Seix I Barral", Barcelona.

As a training/test for "the big one", some lesser fairs were held in the Montjuïc venues in late 1920's. Like this CCateringFair, held in October 1927.
A nice (in my view)poster stamp based on a Francesc Galí picture was issued. In there, you can see Venus stepping from a Greek ship. Always the Greco-roman landscape that, so much pleased our great-grandfathers.

Two early XXth century Barcelona car races cinderellas:

This thread becomes more like a treatise


Very impressing, Cursus!


Cheers

Thank you very much James, for your nice words. First of all, to apologize for being two weeks missing. I went on holidays and, although I followed you daily, I forgot my password; so I wasn't able to write any answer.
Anyway, there have been some very nice weeks in North-East Europe, I've bought a few items of Postal History and books, visited the Estonian and Finnish postal museums, in Tartu and Helsinki, and had a good and fresh (compared with home) time. It's one of the (many) advantages of living in our small Europe: everything is at hand reach.

Following the thread, I'm showing some Cinderellas issued in connexion to the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, though none is official.

Sitges is a beach town, 30 km south of Barcelona. On this Cinderella you can read "Fashionable beach, winter stage". Through the Gothic window, there can be seen La Vila Vella (the old town) and a Latin sails boat. A carnation plant is just near the window.

Perhaps, my favourite cinderella is this one issued for the Barcelona People's Olympiad to be held in my city, seventy five years ago. The event was aborted by the fascist Spanish army uprising of July 1936.Design by Fritz Lewy.






Note: this image was already posted elsewhere but, out of coherence, I think that it's to this thread where it actually belongs.

Gràcia is a Barcelona's neigbourhood, so close to the city's down town, that for most foreigners it woluld look that actually belongs to it.
But the citizens of Barcelona, are very much aware of our history and remember that from 1850 to 1897 Gràcia was an independent town; in fact, the second largest town in Catalonia, after Barcelona itself.
For this reason it has retained a lot of its traditions, among them "La Festa Major" or the town's Patron's holiday; held on the week around August 15th (The August's Virgin, for catholic people), when a lot of events happen in the heavely ornated Grâcia's streets.
I Have a number of cinderellas issued for these events from 1950 onwards; but I didn't know of earlier ones. So, imagine my surprise (and delight) when I ran into this cinderella:





It shows the town's main square clock tower (built in 1865). Quite unusual on our catholic landscape, dominated by the church tower clocks. But Gràcia always had the fame of being revolutionary and anticatholic. So, a "civil clock" was fit for it.
Perhaps, the most thrilling for me is the date of issue: August 1936. On July 19th 1936 the Spanish Civil War, broke out. So it's very unlikely that there was any celebration at all. The cinderella was issued (again) for an event that wasn't.
Just to end, to state that I was actually born in Gràcia (some years later) and that my mother's family lived there. I still live at a ten minutes walk from Gràcia.
Didn't I tell you before that Barcelona's people are very attached to our traditions?

On April 14th 1931, the Second Catalan Republic was proclaimed on Barcelona. Altough, it only lasteed for four days, the Catalan People was very fond of it and a monument to this fact was placed ont he top of the Tibidabo, the mountains that backs Barcelona. It was destroyed in 1939 by Franco's army.
This cinderella was issued to rise money for that monument, it also exists in green (I don't have it... yet)

For my post number 100 (a nice number!), I've choosen a cinderella that it's somewhat special to me:




It's a pretty small one (just 25 x 35 mm) shows a schoolboy and the text in Catalan "Do you already belong to the Catalan Learning Protection Association?". It's a cinderella based on big poster drawn by Barcelona's artist Josep Obiols, encouraging people to contribute with 5 cents (of pesseta) to that association On the top there's our flag: four blood stripes on a golden field.
This association like everything related to Catalan Culture, was banned by Franco's regime (1939/1975). But we're a resilient people and somehow the teachers of my school in Barcelona (founded in 1922 and still going on) managed to have a coloured poster of that banned association, hanging on our school walls around 1966/69, when I was 7 to 10 years old. So I remember seeing it quite often.
Now, whenever I see this cinderella, I pay tribute to those hard fighting people who during the winter of our nation kept the flame burning, to pass to us.

Barcelona's 1900 Carnival. A modernist cinderella

Have you ever thought about writing a book/catalog about them?

I think that there are many out there who are interested in such an area as much as I am.


Cheers