Ignacio Zuloaga Eibar 1870-Madrid 1945

New York, Kraushaar Galleries, 1914

'Zuloaga's New Work Shown', New York American, 19 January 1914
Enrique Lafuente Ferrari, The Life and Work of Ignacio Zuloaga, Barcelona, 1991, p. 510, no. 373, catalogued

Original canvas. There are scattered areas of retouching visible under ultraviolet light, notably two small flecks to the centre of the upper edge and some light infilling to the lower quarter of the work. Apart from some retouching associated with an L-shaped repaired tear (approx. 30 by 13cm.) near the left hand of the figure, and a very minor repair to a spot at the lower centre, both corresponding to patches on the reverse, this work is in good condition, with rich tones and ready to hang. Held in a decorative, gold-painted moulded plaster and wood frame.
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Painted in Paris in 1913, the present work is one of a group of especially fine and quintessentially Spanish portraits that Zuloaga completed in the lead up to World War I. In it La Morenita gazes down on the viewer with consummate style, her compelling gaze bordering on the flirtatious. 

Zuloaga had begun to paint such large scale vertical portraits in the 1890s. In their monumental form he sought to celebrate Spain's rich culture and regional folklore. Initially he asked members of his family to sit for him. His cousin Cándida who lived in Segovia was a particular favourite, painting her likeness over twenty times. 

Wearing the classic Spanish mantilla and peineta worn by unmarried ladies over a mantón, La Morenita sports a yellow flower in her hair, an indication that she is dressed for a bullfight or popular festival. Her elegant green silk skirt decorated with lace from the knee down, is the same as that in which Zuloaga painted his 1909 portrait of Cándida, suggesting that the identity of the sitter is indeed his cousin.

Discussing the power of Zuloaga's portraiture, Lafuente Ferrari comments: 'Those who watched or who sat for Zuloaga always felt that in some mysterious way, the artist transfused into his effigies a powerful and imperious life, in which there was something of his own strong personality and intense energy. ...Zuloaga lent his sitters a certain grandeur in their depiction... For Zuloaga, character is everything; details, features and subtleties are sacrificed to it, while gesture, action and gaze are stressed with atrocious energy. Above all else the gaze... Zuloaga was "the painter of eyes"; but these eyes do not so much invite us to see into a soul as impose upon us their personal and peculiar charge of energy.' (Lafuente Ferrari, pp. 285 & 286).