María Luisa Puiggener (1867-1921), Attributed To - A Young Artist

Oil on canvas. Original canvas. Minor repair to the back. This portrait, attributed with sound technical expertise to María Luisa Puiggener, is an exceptional testimony to the sociology of Spanish art at the end of the 19th century. The work presents a painter captured in all her professional splendor, dressed in a green suit that contrasts with her tool of the trade: a palette rich in meaning. The enduring influence of a style borrowed from Andalusian costumbrismo is evident, its technique manifested by a palette dominated by an austerity of earthy and ochre tones, applied with vigorous impasto that gives the painted surface an almost textured quality. This formal approach, far removed from the superficial delicacy often demanded of female "amateurs" of the time, reveals a strong stylistic commitment and a mastery of light that make Puiggener a pioneer in the professionalization of women in the visual arts. Beyond its anatomical rigor and technical mastery, the portrait exudes a profound melancholy and psychological intensity that seem to echo the systemic isolation of its creator. The face, rendered with poignant introspection, speaks to us of an era when being a woman and being an artist were two categories hardly compatible; a painful era when female talent was often relegated to the domestic sphere or reduced to mere anecdote. In this painter's gaze shines through an inherited sadness, the weight of a thousand silent battles to gain a place in academies and national exhibitions. Each of Puiggener's brushstrokes seems like an act of resistance, a tear of oil paint crystallizing the struggle of these women who, like her, held the palette with the same determination they used to defend their dignity against a world that stubbornly refused to give them their own creative voice. - Image dimensions without frame: 30 x 41 cm / 42 x 53 cm with exclusive custom frame.