A portrait of Aline Masson, Madrazo´s favorite model and the esthetic ideal of femininity in late-nineteenth-century bourgeois Paris. The white mantilla over a red embroidered shawl and the flowers in her hair link this work to the nineteenth-century French taste for Spanish things, a detail Madrazo emphasized in many of his works. This painting entered the Prado Museum as part of the Ramón
Goya never actually painted the cartoon for this scene, which is one of his masterpieces, and the most popular of a series intended for the bedroom of the infantas in Madrid's El Pardo Palace. The project was suspended following the death of Carlos III. Here, the painter manages to capture the sensation of life and the hustle and bustle of a crowd sitting in the meadow. The landscape opens onto th
This painting features a young and attractive “Manola” [woman of the people, particularly in Madrid] reminiscent of the famous actress nicknamed “the Tyrant” portrayed by Goya. Slightly recumbent on a finely-carved couch, she is wearing a striking blue gold-embroidered short jacket. The picture is highly charged with sensuality and eroticism, embodied through her languid gaze, her gesture of cover
This young aristocrat, portrayed in three-quarter length, stands posed before the viewer wearing a magnificent black satin and velvet dress trimmed with lace and ribbons, a close-fitting bodice and a full, domed skirt. Her hair is smoothed and parted, with braids wound around her ears and gathered in the back, held in place with a large, bejewelled pin and lace frill. She wears, at her neckline, a
The writer Carolina Coronado (1820-1911) was a leading Romantic poet and a staunch advocate of education for women. Her sensitive, melancholy nature is conveyed here with delicate precision. The meticulous draughtsmanship reflects Madrazo’s academic training, whilst the beautiful black tones of the shawl, like the austere palette, recall the traditions of seventeenthcentury Spanish painting.
A very beautiful study of Isabel de Segura, the protagonist of the nineteenth-century legend of The Lovers of Teruel, which was dramatized in verse by Hartzenbusch. The bride, prepared to marry Rodrigo de Azara, the spouse her father chose for her, wears an expression of profound sadness and desperation at not being able to marry her true love, Diego de Marsilla. The modernity of Muñoz Degr
Dressed for attending the bullfight, with a white mantilla and hair comb and holding a large fan, the subject looks defiantly at the viewer. The expressivity of the face and intensity of the gaze make this female portrait one of Zuloaga’s finest works from this period.