Q23907180

This 1890 canvas, also held in the Museum of Montserrat, may have been produced in the same period or even the same campaign as the previous Montserrat work from that year, as Rusiñol was highly prolific during his early career. The early 1890s saw him producing genre scenes, portraits, and landscapes in roughly equal measure as he sought his essential subject. His Paris experience had opened him to the Symbolist undercurrents in French painting, and some works from this period carry a quieter, more inward atmosphere than pure Impressionist observation would demand. Montserrat's holdings of his work reflect the strong institutional support Catalan artists received from regional collections that actively sought to document the modernisme movement as it unfolded.

Oil on canvas typical of Rusiñol's 1890 output — competent academic construction combined with a growing interest in atmospheric effect over precise rendering. The palette shows the cooler, more restrained tonality of his Paris-influenced phase rather than the warmer Mediterranean palette he would adopt later.