Portrait of D. Helena Dulac Pinto de Miranda

The portrait of life size figures, framed by a rectangle with an opaque background that closes in on the person being portrayed, was fashionable at the end of the XIX century and beginning of the XX century, as in the splendid examples by Whistler, Klimt or J.S. Sargent who appropriated the academic tradition and introduced modern values to it. The white figure of the lady is outlined by the background and floor. Served by a rich palette, the frontal inclination of this plane imposes a pictorial superimposition of the modern onto a naturalist space of representation, creating a correspondence and circulation between the general frame. The shadows of the left side of her dress activate the volumetrics and suggest the material's quality which a large portion of the white silhouette dilutes and evens out, a profoundly modern aspect. The flesh and figure as a whole reveal a porcelain bibelot, a metaphor of the end of century taste that Eça de Queirós described, which António Ramalho, his confessed admirer, painted as the first portrait painter of his generation, that is, if we exclude the particular case of Columbano.