Carmen Bastián

Carmen Bastián is an oil painting by Mariano Fortuny, dated 1871, showing a young Romani woman named Carmen, who lived in the Granada neighbourhood of Barranco de la Zorra and had a good relationship with the painter's family. She reclines on a wooden sofa in a plain room bathed in light. She is fully dressed, yet her skirt is lifted to the waist, exposing the area that becomes the exact centre of the composition, while she glances sideways at the viewer with a bold expression and holds a fan. The work is unusual within Fortuny's output: in his other nudes, such as The Odalisque, the bodies are smooth and idealised, whereas here we see a real young woman who does not follow conventional canons of beauty. The treatment is luminous, with a white wall that enhances the model's skin, and it mixes highly detailed areas with softer, blurred ones. Unsigned and unfinished, it was found in the artist's studio after his death and stayed in the family until it was sold in the late 1980s. Its boldness makes it a singular work for understanding the artist's realism.

Painter

Mariano Fortuny Marsal

Date

1871

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

45 × 62 cm

Museum

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Genre

portrait

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