Andalusian Genre Painting

EF, who receives my monthly “Stuff-Whisperer” newsletter, read that I spent the first two weeks of September in Malaga, Southern Spain, visiting my brother. She sent an oil on canvas of her Spanish Lady, as it is known to her family (dated 1887), because I have experienced Andalusian culture recently!

EF’s grandparents purchased this work at my favorite department store (I grew up in Chicago), Marshall Field and Co. They’d purchased it at the Picture Galleries for $67 after their wedding in 1915. EF remembers it in their dining room.

This style of work is called “genre painting,” which portrays images of the ‘old world’ of simple people in traditional costumes, set in streets hundreds of years old, exotic, and uncomplicated. The subjects portrayed have a natural dignity born of the old ways of their native lands. 

Genre painting took the form of one of two prevalent themes in art of the Gilded Age (1870-1900). As I suggested, one form portrayed humble commoners set in exotic places; the other theme pictured aristocrats set in the formal architecture of past ages. These two themes both looked ‘backward,’ either to a simpler rural past, or to idealized historical images of great status and refinement. 

When this painting was created (1887), the unknown artist was “looking back” to old Spain, where a pretty Andalusian maiden dressed in traditional garb might pose coquettishly on the walls of the streets of Granada. This genre style of the late 19^th century – picturing humble common folk of the past – provided a “comfort” with the familiar in an era that seemed to be moving quickly into a disorienting future. That the modern world was here to stay was unmistakable to people of the Gilded Age, thus nostalgia for the uncomplicated past was a common theme in art and architecture as well. 

“This style of work is called “genre painting,” which portrays images of the ‘old world’ of simple people in traditional costumes, set in streets hundreds of years old, exotic, and uncomplicated.”

The Gilded Age was a time of sweeping changes. From roughly 1870 to 1900, the U.S. and developed countries of Europe transformed from a largely agrarian society of farmers and small producers to an industrial economy based in large cities. During these few short decades, innovation exploded in the fields of engineering, chemistry, and technology, changing the pace and experience of life itself. The past was easier to understand. This era is called the “Second Industrial Revolution” (1870-1914), a technological revolution that was countered in art by nostalgic themes of retreats into the calming, idealized past.

The modern world was developing in the late 19^th century with breakneck speed. A short list of inventions around the date of this painting’s creation would include the telephone (1875), the incandescent light bulb (1879), the phonograph, the internal combustion engine, the electric generator, the Bessemer process for the mass production of steel, the air brake, the automobile (1886), the Kodak camera (1888), and the electric streetcar (1888). 

Politically, the world was in turmoil in three great wars when this painting was created: the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) and the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). Late 19^th century buyers of art purchased paintings which alleviated the fear of the future, such as EF’s “The Spanish Lady” of 1887. 

The “School” of this painting, or the geographical style, is important. The painting is signed “Granada” bottom left, which is not the artist’s name, but the place. The lack of signature is also indicative of genre work, which often was not signed as it was meant to be created by an anonymous (past) artist of the people. Signatures were for more highbrow works of art!

The “Granada School” or “Andalusian School” of the late 19^th century featured handsome town and country folk, but few images of nature in favor of classic “old world” village streets of Southern Spain. Images of an idealized lifestyle were painted in rich colors. Very few realistically painted figures were identifiable portraits. 

Possibly the greatest artist of the Granada School was Manuel García y Rodríguez. EF might compare his A Street in Granada of 1870 to her Spanish Lady.

I found works of the “Granada School” selling at the Galeria de Arte y Antiguedades Ruiz Linares in Granada; there, a Portrait of a Young Spanish Man from the late 19^th century is offered for $1,450. The Drouot Auction in Paris, the largest public auction consortium since 1852, sold a work of the late 19^th century Andalusian School attributed to A Martin/E Castar titled Rebecca, a Spanish version of Rebecca at the Well, for $1,500. Also, for comparable sales, at the Isbilya Auction House in Madrid, a fine example of a genre scene, a painting of ruffians titled Bandoleros, sold for $1,000.

EF, your grandparent’s painting would likely be worth $1,500-$2,000 today.