Spanish school; 19th century

Spanish school; 19th century.
"Lady".
Oil on canvas.
It presents repainting on the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 62 x 46 cm.
Portrait of a lady of great instantaneity, similar to a fleeting vision captured from the natural, more than to a portrait calmly elaborated in a studio. The woman, in fact, does not pose nor does she seem to be aware of our gaze, but appears with her body with her back to the viewer and her face in profile, looking towards something beyond the painting, hidden from our view. However, the composition is typical of the portrait of the period, with the long-busted figure in the foreground, brightly lit and set against a neutral background that emphasises her body. In this portrait, the painter has paid particular attention to the quality of the elements, especially the headdress, whose sparkle plays an important role in the composition. It is a beautiful, delicate face in the classical manner, with the feminine ideal of the great classicists of the past as its point of reference.
As in the rest of Europe, portraiture became the leading genre in Spanish painting in the 19th century as a result of the new social structures that were established in the Western world during that century, embodying the ultimate expression of the transformation in the taste and mentality of the new clientele that emerged among the nobility and the wealthy gentry, who were to take the reins of history in this period. While official circles gave precedence to other artistic genres, such as history painting, and the incipient collectors encouraged the profusion of genre paintings, portraits were in great demand for paintings intended for the more private sphere, as a reflection of the value of the individual in the new society. This genre embodies the permanent presence of the image of its protagonists, to be enjoyed in the privacy of a studio, in the everyday warmth of a family cabinet or presiding over the main rooms of the house.