Ramón Casas Barcelona 1866-1932

The subject of a young girl wearing a shawl became one of Casas' most celebrated subjects, the present example being one of the painter's most dramatic and commanding paintings on this theme.

Silhouetted against a deep cobalt blue, the elegant features of the model in the present work shine out.  Covering her hair is a white headscarf which she has knotted under her chin.  Around her shoulders is draped a stunning yellow shawl.  In other versions that Casas executed of the present subject, the model is portrayed in different poses with different coloured headscarfs and different shawls.  Few of these related oils, however, can match the combination of charm and visual presence with which he embues the sitter in the present work.

One of the founding members of the Quatre Gats circle of artists in Barcelona and the leading representative of the Modernista movement, Ramón Casas abandoned his studies when he was 11 years old in order to pursue his vocation as a painter. In 1882, aged just 16 years and with the financial support of his father, he travelled to Paris with Santiago Rusiñol. There he studied under Carolus Duran and at the Gervex Academy, where Carrière and Puvis de Chavannes corrected students' work. That same year he returned to Spain where to great acclaim he held his inaugural exhibition with Rusiñol in the Sala Parés in Barcelona.