A man and a woman winnowing grain in the fields of Salamanca
Ca. 1910. Gelatin / Collodion on glass plaque.Not on display
The many tasks associated with agricultural labor—almost as varied as the regions in which they were performed—proved to be highly attractive subjects for amateur photographers, who traveled with their cameras in search of the most compelling image. Many practiced stereoscopic photography, a medium that brought about a true revolution in the field and fostered the emergence of associative projects. The exchange of stereoscopic plates was a common practice among enthusiasts, which is why photographs by different authors can often be found within the same collection, despite the challenges of attribution. Such is the case with the archive of the painter Cecilio Pla, from which this image originates. The author may have been Venancio Gombau.
This photograph, which masterfully captures a fleeting moment, was taken near Pedraza de Alba—a municipality in the province of Salamanca, located within the region of Tierra de Alba—at the precise instant when a man tosses grain into the air in order to separate it from the chaff, while a woman works beside him. From an ethnographic standpoint, the image is particularly valuable for documenting the use of tools such as the winnowing shovel and for illustrating a labor practice representative of rural life across much of the Spanish landscape.
Sánchez Torija, Beatriz, 'Atribuida a Venancio Gombau. Pareja aventando el cereal en el campo salmantino'. Arte y transformaciones sociales en España (1885-1910), Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2024, p.104-105 nº16
