Julio Romero de Torres Córdoba 1874-1930

Bilbao, Julio Romero de Torres, 1919
Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Julio Romero de Torres, 2002, no. 26 (illustrated in colour on the catalogue cover)

At his one-man show in Bilbao in 1919 Romero exhibited a series of portraits which he titled using generic girls' names common to his native Andalucia. These names - Bedición, Fuensanta, María, and Nieves - were not the models' actual names. In the case of Nieves, the model was eighteen-year-old María Luisa Parodi, born in Seville in 1900, who, after her father's death, moved with her mother to Córdoba. Here she befriended Romero's sister, Angelita, and her daughters Amalia and María. She became one of Romero's favourite models before marrying José Alarcón Feroz, owner of the Alarcón de Córdoba winery. In the present work she poses before the timeless scenery of the Guadalquivir river with the Visos hills beyond.

María Luisa is the archetypal muse of Romero de Torres's work. Her dark skin, melancholic yet seductive expression and latent sexuality embody fundamental Andalucian values, expressed in traditions such as flamenco and bullfighting. Stylistically, Romero was deeply influenced by two trips to Italy, in 1907 and 1908, where he saw the serene dream-like landscapes and mysterious faces of the quattrocento Italian artists which he assimilated into his own vision.

Fig. 1, Photograph of Mª Luisa Parodi, the sitter depicted in the present work