Carlos Masberger

Artwork: La Parranda, La Farsa cover, 1928

Carlos Masberger was one of the illustrators who gave Madrid's La Farsa theatre collection its face in the late 1920s. His name also appears as Mansberger in period sources, and he worked alongside Penagos and Varela de Seijas among the star illustrators of La Novela de Hoy. Juan Ballester credits him with several covers for La Farsa, among them Hernani, nº 42.

Two of his covers anchor the La Farsa set. For La Parranda (nº 36, 1928), he drew in 1926 a woman's face at the center of three concentric rings, the most purely graphic image in the series. For La Morería (nº 38, 1928), his signed and dated cover shows a smiling figure balancing a tray that carries a small, serene face, a piece of symbolism drawn from the Lisbon legend of Maria Severa and the birth of fado.