Mariano Fortuny was a visionary designer and artist – best known today for his rich, innovative textiles and opulent dress designs, he was also an accomplished painter, etcher and photographer, as well as a designer of theatrical sets, costumes and lighting, revolutionising the stagecraft of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with his ambitious lighting designs. Fortuny’s varied and sumptuous output has acquired almost mythological status in the canon of early twentieth-century Aestheticism. Guillermo de Osma sets out to provide a complete and authoritative account of his life and work. Born in 1871, into a famous family of artists, critics, architects and craftsmen, Fortuny benefitted from an eclectic artistic education, and inherited his father’s passion for collecting, as well as his interest in the art and artefacts of the Arabic world. He supplemented this early immersion in the art world with his own ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe’s cultural centres, including Paris and...