Carmelita Requena
Thomas Eakins American
After completing his studies in Paris, Eakins traveled to Spain in 1869. While in Madrid, he visited the Museo del Prado, where he admired the paintings of Diego Velázquez and Jusepe de Ribera. He then settled for the winter in Seville, from where he wrote to his sister that he was painting Carmelita Requeña, the seven-year-old daughter of street performers. This portrait sketch, made in preparation for a large multi-figure composition, reveals Eakins’s lessons in Paris under Léon Bonnat, who advocated the painterly tradition of the Spanish Baroque masters.
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