The Grandfather’s Lesson
1893. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
Dressed for the Sabbath, a grandfather and his granddaughter appear in a comfortable interior in front of a map of the Mediterranean basin that coincides with the spread of the Sephardic diaspora. Seated on a hip-joint chair, the old man is instructing the little girl, who listens to him on the floor. The image, the work of an unidentified painter, synthesises the patriarchal role of men in the most traditional nineteenth century families as transmitters and repositories of identity.
G. Navarro, Carlos, Invitadas. Fragmentos sobre mujeres, ideología y artes plásticas en España (1833-1931), Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2020, p.141 nº 7