Pepita

Portrait of Josefa Prendes Rodríguez, daughter of his aunt Manuela who was like a second mother to the painter. Apart from being his cousin and neighbour, as of 1903 Pepita was a very frequent subject of Piñole’s figure paintings.

This was one of the first pictures that he painted of his cousin, when she was still a child. It was executed with paint so diluted that the figure of a Moor is seen through it. The facture of the latter was precise, possibly the result of Piñole’s stay in Rome. The portrait of Pepita, on the other hand, ranging from synthetistic to Cézannian, appears to be a representation of the victory of the new art encountered in Paris over the conventional art learnt in Rome. Thus the artist possibly did not mind covering up the laboriously executed but antiquated Moor with the more modern figure of his cousin.