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Home » Collection » Two Women at a Window
  • Overview
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Technical Summary
  • Bibliography
Overview

Seville's most popular painter in the later seventeenth century was Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

While Murillo is best known for works with religious themes, he also produced a number of genre paintings of figures from contemporary life engaged in ordinary pursuits. These pictures often possess a wistful charm; Two Women at a Window is a striking example. A standing woman attempts to hide a smile with her shawl as she peeks from behind a partially opened shutter, while a younger woman leans on the windowsill, gazing out at the viewer with amusement. The difference in their ages might indicate a chaperone and her charge, a familiar duo in upper–class Spanish households. Covering one's smile or laugh was considered good etiquette among the aristocracy.

The convincingly modeled, life–size figures, framed within an illusionistically painted window, derive from Dutch paintings that were meant to fool the eye.

Provenance

Pedro Francisco Luján y Góngora, Duque de Almodóvar del Rio, Madrid;[1] his heirs; sold 1823 to William A'Court, later 1st baron Heytesbury [1779-1860], Heytesbury, Wiltshire;[2] by descent to his eldest son, William Henry Ashe, 2nd baron Heytesbury [1809-1891]; by descent to his grandson, William Frederick Ashe, 3rd baron Heytesbury [1862-1903]; sold 1894 to (Stephen T. Gooden, London);[3] purchased 3 December 1894 by Peter A. B. Widener [1834-1915], Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[4] inheritance from the Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener [1860-1943], Elkins Park.[5]

[1] For this provenance see William Stirling-Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain, 3 vols., London, 1848: 2:920 n. 2, who presumably had the information from Baron Heytesbury (d. 30 May 1860). Heytesbury was ambassador extraordinary in Madrid in 1822-1823. Pedro Francisco Luján y Góngora, Duke of Almodóvar del Rio (1728-1794) was a Spanish diplomat and man of letters. The ownership is established by the inscription on an undated print after the painting by Joaquín Ballester, which employs the present tense: "Quadro original de Bartolomé Murillo que posee el Excmo. Sr. Duque de Almodóvar," reproduced in Diego Angulo Iñiguez, "Quelques tableaux de Murillo. Les femmes a la fenêtre de Murillo, de la Galerie Nationale de Washington," Evolution générale et developpements regionaux en histoire de l'art, Budapest, 1972: fig. 2. Gustav F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols. and supplement, London, 1857: 389, mistakenly gives the provenance as the family of the count of Altamira. Duncan Kinkead, "The Picture Collection of Don Nicolas Omazur," Burlington Magazine 128 (1986): 353, posits that the picture is identical to one in the 1703 inventory of the Sevillian painter, Matías Arteaga. However, the entry does not give the name of the artist and mentions only a single woman--"Un lienzo de vara y medio de alto de una mujer asomada a ventana" ("A canvas is a vara and a half high of a woman looking out of a window"). In a 7 September 1986 letter to unknown recipient, Professor Kinkead states that the same picture is mentioned in Arteaga's capital (possessions of husband at marriage) of 1680, where the estimated value, in his opinion, "is simply too low for it to have been an original by Murillo."

[2] Burke's Peerage, London, 1967: 1247-1248.

[3] Gooden's name is found in the manuscript copy of the Widener catalogue.

[4] Records from Edith Standen's (Widener's secretary) Lynnewood Hall card file, NGA curatorial files.

[5] Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener (1923), n.p.

Exhibition History
1828
British Institution, London, 1828, no. 2.
1864
British Institution, London, 1864, no. 56.
1887
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1887, no. 114.
1941
Spanish Painting, The Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art, 1941, 118, no. 77.
1990
El Espacio Privado: Cinco Siglos en Veinte Palabras, Museo Espanol de Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain, 1990-1991, 332, repro.
1992
Tesoros del Arte Español, Pabellón de España, Exposicion Universal de Seville, Spain, 1992, no cat. located.
1996
Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 84-85, color repro.
2001
Murillo: Scenes of Childhood, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London; Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 2001, no. 10, repro. (shown only in London).
2002
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682): Paintings from American Collections, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002, no. 32, repro.
2002
Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe l'Oeil Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2002-2003, no. 70, color repro.
Bibliography
1857
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of more than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Mss., &c.&c., visited in 1854 and 1856, ..., forming a supplemental volume to the "Treasures of Art in Great Britain". London, 1857: 388-389.
1883
Curtis, Charles B. Velázquez and Murillo. New York and London, 1883: 288.
1885
Catalogue of Paintings Forming the Collection of P.A.B. Widener, Ashbourne, near Philadelphia. 2 vols. Paris, 1885-1900: 2(1900):229, repro.
1891
Stirling-Maxwell, William. Annals of the Artists of Spain. 3 vols. London, 1848: 2:920-921; 3:1442, repro. 920 (also 1891 ed., 3:1091-1093, repro. 1092; 4:1635).
1913
Mayer, August L. Murillo. Klassiker der Kunst, 22. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913: 215, repro. (also 1923 ed., 215, repro.).
1915
Mayer, August L. "Notes on Spanish Pictures in American Collections." Art in America 3, no. 6 (October 1915): 315.
1916
Berenson, Bernard, and William Roberts. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early Italian and Spanish Schools. Philadelphia, 1916: unpaginated, repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1923
Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.
1931
Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 34, repro.
1935
Inventory of the Objects d'Art at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, The Estate of the Late P.A.B. Widener. Philadelphia, 1935: 34, repro.
1935
Tietze, Hans. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935: 20, repro. (English ed., Masterpieces of European Painting in America. New York, 1939 :20, repro. ).
1942
Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 6, as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 80, color repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1945
Cook 1945, 65-86, fig. 11.
1948
Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 32, repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1956
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 34, repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 115, as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1960
Evans, Grose. Spanish Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Ten in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 30, color repro.
1960
The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 24, repro.
1961
Gaya Nuño, Juan A. "Peinture picaresque," L'oeil 84 (December, 1961): 58, color repro. 59.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 170, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 95, as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:210, color repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 84, repro., as A Girl and her Duenna.
1972
Angulo Iñiguez, Diego. "Quelques tableaux de Murillo. Les femmes à la fenêtre ..., de la Galerie Nationale ...." In Evolution générale et dévelop. régionaux en histoire de l'art. 3 vols. Budapest, 1972: 2:781-784, pl. 533: 1.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 250, repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1978
Gaya Nuño, Juan A. L'opera completa di Murillo. Milan, 1978: 103-104, color repro. front cover.
1979
Angulo Iñiguez, Diego. "Murillo y Goya." Goya. 148-150 (1979): 211-213, repro. 210.
1981
Angulo Iñiguez, Diego. Murillo: Su vida, su arte, su obra. 3 vols. Madrid, 1981: 1:452-455; 2:307-308, pl. 435.
1981
Kinkead, Duncan T. "Tres documentos nuevos del pintor Matías Arteaga y Alfaro." BSAA 47 (1981): 345-357.
1982
Brown, Jonathan. "Murillo, pintor de temas eróticos. Una faceta inadvertida de su obra." Goya 169-171 (1982): 35-43, fig. 7.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 244, no. 309, color repro., as A Girl and Her Duenna.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 290, repro.
1986
Kinkead, Duncan T. "The Picture Collection of Don Nicolás Omazur." The Burlington Magazine 128 (1986): 132-146.
1990
Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 105-109, color repro. 107.
1990
El Espacio Privado: Cinco Siglos en Veinte Palabras. Exh. cat. Museo Espanol de Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain, 1990: 332, repro.
1991
Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 199, color repro.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 86, repro.
2001
Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA II: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, 2001: 100-101, 212, color repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 170, no. 129, color repro.
2006
Rosenberg, Pierre. Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. Milan, 2006: 108-109, 233, 239, color fig.
2010
Glendinning, Nigel. "Collectors of Spanish Paintings." In Spanish Art in Britain and Ireland, 1750-1920. Studies in Reception, in Memory of Enriqueta Harris Frankfort. Edited by Nigel Glendinning and Hilary Macartney. London, 2010: 54-55, fig. 14.
Technical Summary

The support is a moderately fine, single-thread, plain-weave fabric. The original tacking margin is gone and the top and sides are slightly out of square. The window ledge is painted on a separate piece of fabric, 9 cm high, of a different fabrication from the rest of the picture. Removal of the overpaint on the added piece revealed a paint layer unrelated to the technique of the rest of the picture. A line of loss, with a thin piece of fabric inserted in the right half, suggests that the top 8 cm of the painting with original ground and paint was once folded.

The paint is generally applied over a chalk ground as an opaque paste with low impasto and broad brush marking. Pentimenti on the proper left sleeve of the standing woman and on the shoulders of the dress of the young girl show the artist working out the design of the folds. There are numerous discrete losses scattered throughout, particularly along the left, top, and right edges, throughout the background, across the faces of the two women, and in the hands and proper right arm of the young girl. The painting was cleaned, stabilized, and revarnished between 1979 and 1982.