Virgin and Child

c. 1680/1686

Luisa Roldán

Artist, Spanish, 1650 - 1704

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Spanish women artists of the 17th century worked anonymously. They were not publicly acknowledged, and today we rarely know their names. Luisa Roldán—later called La Roldana—is an exception. She learned her trade from her father, a noted sculptor in Seville, and established her own workshop in Cádiz. Later, she served as court sculptor to King Carlos II and his successor, Felipe V, in Madrid. Her hard-won recognition for her work did not guarantee financial success: Roldán died in poverty.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 34

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Shown from the knees up, a woman stands facing and looking at us with her head tilted a little to our left in this vertical portrait painting. She has pale skin, a heart-shaped face with rosy cheeks, and a rose-pink bow mouth. Thin, arched, sable-brown eyebrows frame her gray eyes. A wreath of pale pink flowers and curling white ostrich feathers crowns her long gray hair, which is piled high on her head. Loose curly tendrils brush both shoulders. Her glowing, silver satin gown is trimmed with delicate sheer lace around the wide, plunging neckline and sleeves, and has a pink sash around her narrow waist. Pearl bracelets adorn her wrists. She leans to her left, our right, to rest her left elbow against a waist-high, cinnamon-brown stone pedestal, which is decorated with a bronze-colored garland and bow on the side facing us. A ring of blue, yellow, red, and pink flowers, woven with strands of ivy, dangles in the hand resting on the pedestal. Her right hand hangs loosely by her side. Along the left edge of the dimly lit background, a tree with a thick trunk angles into the upper left corner. A smaller sapling grows just in front of it. On the right, bushes with olive and fern-green leaves dotted with lilac-purple flecks rise above the pedestal. Dark clouds fill most of the top third of the canvas but they part around her head to reveal the soft blue sky. The artist signed and dated the work in white in the lower right corner, “L. Vigée Le Brun 1782.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Vicente de Medina y Carvajal, X Conde de Mejorada [1903-1967], Seville; by gift or sale to Ramón Charlo Rodríguez [1902-1996], Seville; by gift c. 1970 to Rafael de Lama, Seville; by gift or inheritance during the 1980s to Manuel de Lama, Germany; (sale, Auktionshaus zeitGenossen, Münster, 24 April 2021, no. 928); Carteia Fine Arts, Madrid; purchased May 2022 by NGA.

Associated Names

Bibliography

2022

  • Dickerson III, C. D. "Gifts & Acquisitions." Art for the Nation no. 66 (Fall 2022): 31-32, repro.

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