Portrait of a girl

This Portrait of a Girl is an extraordinary example of late 19th-century European realistic painting and one of the museum’s most emblematic works. The Girl, whose identity is unknown, is one of a series of portraits painted by Raimundo Madrazo for distinguished aristocratic or bourgeois families in Madrid and Paris.
This is a fairly realistic portrait in its treatment of forms, although it reveals a certain romanticism in its brushstrokes. It is a realistic physical model, but it is also a psychological, albeit slightly romantic, portrait, directing our attention to the candour and naivety of childhood, or even to the way in which the wealthiest circles of society enjoyed seeing themselves represented.