María Teresa González del Valle

Portraiture was perhaps the genre in which Nicañor Piñole achieved the finest results. Although not his favourite genre (he preferred landscapes and picturesque scenes of daily life), this Asturian artist produced an exceptionally large number of portraits. In addition to self-portraits and commissioned images, Piñole painted numerous depictions of relatives and family friends. The present sitter was the daughter of Anselmo González del Valle, a musician and close friend of the artist’s family on his mother’s side. Piñole had already painted this sitter in 1899 in a portrait characterised by its loose handling and Impressionist style. The following year, having obtained a letter of introduction to the painter José Villegas from María Teresa’s father, Piñole went to Rome and Paris. The present portrait, executed around 1913, is markedly different to Piñole’s first depiction of this sitter. More restrained in approach, it is a conventional image but one in which the head is masterfully conceived and painted, as is usually the case with his portraits. The young woman’s gaze gives depth to a work that certainly conforms to 19th-century taste, a fact that did not however, help Piñole in his continual failures at the National Exhibitions.