Street urchins and thugs at the Disinfection Camp (Viejo Madrid) – Original Drawings

Madrid original art: Charcoal drawing. Street urchins and thugs at the Disinfection Camp by Mario Jodra, from the Viejo Madrid series. Signed, with Certificate of Authenticity.

This drawing depicts street urchins and thugs arriving at the Disinfection Camp, on their way to internment in a school. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the terms “golfos” or “golfillos” popularly referred to orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children who scraped by on the streets of Madrid, begging, collecting discarded cigarette butts, or committing minor thefts to survive. The Disinfection Camp was a municipal hygiene facility run by Madrid’s Municipal Laboratory (near the Dehesa de la Arganzuela or areas with overnight shelters). Its main purpose was sanitary: to curb epidemics such as typhus or cholera through head-shaving, delousing, and forced bathing or clothes-washing of the most vulnerable populations. Around 1905, Madrid City Council stepped up the roundup of these children. After passing through the camp’s hygiene and medical screening, they were given uniforms, fed, and transferred to reform schools or trade asylums, with the aim of lifting them out of social exclusion and giving them a legal trade. This drawing is based on several photographic compositions from around 1900, by an unknown author.

This is an original charcoal drawing from the Viejo Madrid series — a body of work on paper depicting historic Madrid streets, buildings, people, and everyday scenes that have since disappeared. Rooted in the artist’s own childhood memories of the city in the 1980s, each drawing is a dreamed, fictional reconstruction of a vanished Madrid. Hand-signed original artwork, sold with a Certificate of Authenticity, available directly from the artist’s studio.

This drawing also appears in Viejo Madrid, a self-published book by the same artist. It’s available in two editions: the original 2022 edition, and a 2026 second edition with a different format, binding, and additional drawings — both available in this shop.

DETAILS

Artist:
Mario Jodra

Title of work:
Street urchins and thugs at the Disinfection Camp (Serie Viejo Madrid)

Techniques & Materials:
Charcoal

Support:
Bouffant paper 90g

Dimensions:
29,7 x 42 cm

Location & Year created:
Madrid. 2026

Signed by hand.

Certificates of Authenticity.