“Miró’s Son Boter. A Look at the Past”

Programming:

Opening of the exhibition: Thursday 11/16/2023 at 7 p.m.

• Prior visit at 6 pm for collectors, providers and collaborators (applicate writting to comunicació@miromallorca.com)
• Reception of visitors from 6.30 p.m.
• 7.05 p.m. start of the parliaments of the authorities
• 7.10 p.m. parliament of the exhibition commissioner
• 7.20 p.m. start of the visit to the exhibition. Visit lliure
• From 8 p.m. catering at the Fundació cafeteria

1. Son Boter: the toponym and property

The toponym Son Boter dates back to the mid 16th century. The custom of naming possessions (country estates) after their owner’s surname or, in this case, family nickname, preceded by the compound word Son–meaning that of– is very common in Mallorca and it can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Son Boter was a rural property formed by grouping together four parcels of land purchased by the Moll family, known by the nickname Boter, from an old country estate called Son Vic.

The purchase of this two-quarterada (14,200m2) piece of land by Bartomeu Moll from Martí Ferragut, on June 11th 1642, heralded the beginning of a string of owners.
Over the centuries, the property was owned by various different families. In the early 20th century, Rafael de Ysasi Ransome and his children inherited the property on the death of his wife, Catalina González Salvà. The Ysasi family owned it through to 1958.

2. The concept of a possessió in Mallorca

The term possessió (roughly equivalent to a country estate) refers to a very extensive stretch of land, used for crop growing or pastureland, based around a small group of estate buildings known as les cases. In the late 16th century, the name possessió was used to denote big properties that were formed by uniting land; a name that continued to be used through to the second half of the 20th century. It is a word of Latin origin that virtually displaced the Arab terms alqueria (farmhouse) and rafal (rural property). During the 17th and 18th centuries, these possessions were owned by big landowners, including the Mallorcan nobility.

This is when the construction of large stately estate houses (also known as possessions) began, and alterations were made to existing earlier buildings to convert them into proper manor houses. In the late 19th century, according to chronicles by Archduke Ludwig Salvator, there were about one thousand possessions. From the second half of the 20th century, changes were made to these possessions for a variety of reasons: they were abandoned, they were bought by foreigners, they were turned into museums or rural tourism hotels, or they were used for other leisure activities, with just a few maintaining their former dignity, following costly conservation work by their owners.

3. Son Boter’s architecture

In the late 18th century and, above all, in the 19th century, these possessions had functions midway between those of an urban mansion and a country estate. The Son Armadans, El Terreno and Cala Major areas were perhaps most typically representative of this phenomenon. The Martorell family decided to build a house where they could spend the spring and summer. Its location, in the countryside close to Palma, made this possessió a privileged holiday home. Son Boter’s main house, a building of mixed characteristics, is an example of this kind of use.

4. Miró’s Son Boter

I just purchased ‘Son Boter’, the magnificent house that was just behind ours. Aside from being a good investment, it protects me against potentially annoying neighbors. It will also be a good place for me to make monumental canvases and sculptures, freeing up my studio space. I’m also thinking of setting up lithography and etching presses.

Letter of Joan Miró to Josep Lluís
Sert, 1959

Courtesy of the Frances Loeb Library.
Harvard University Graduate School
of Design