Spanish school or Novohispana; circa. 1790.

Spanish or Novohispanic school; circa. 1790.
"Lady with flowers".
Oil on canvas. Re-coloured.
Measurements: 55 x 43 cm; 70 x 55 cm (frame).
Female portrait in which the painter shows the figure of a young girl with a big hat, adorned with feathers and dressed with an elegant dress of historicist character that forms expressive folds worked with a chiaroscuro of great expressiveness, which moves away from the classical canons and gives volume, movement and naturalism to the figure. The young woman also has an ideal face with symmetrical, idealised features, clearly classical in origin, and an expression of serene beauty that is reminiscent of classical antiquity. The artist thus offers us an image of restrained, delicate and elegant expressiveness. The figure is set in a landscape of bright tones that harmonise with her dress, creating a scene of clear, radiant aesthetics.
As in the rest of Europe, in the 19th century portraiture became the leading genre par excellence in Spanish painting as a result of the new social structures that were established in the Western world during this 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, portraiture was 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 subjects, to be enjoyed in the intimacy of a studio, in the warmth of everyday life.