CONSUELO PERALTA DE RIEGO PICA (Puerto Rico, c. 1810-1875)
"Bath Time", 1847.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated on the reverse.
Frame with slight lack of polychromy.
Some old restorations.
Measurements: 47 x 38,5 cm; 69 x 60 cm (frame).
Consuelo Peralta was an outstanding painter of the Puerto Rican school, in the line initiated by José Campeche. There were few women painters in the nineteenth-century circles of the San Juan competitions, which makes it particularly significant that Peralta was the first woman to receive a gold medal in the Eighth Section of Fine Arts (1860). In fact, the painter had been an active participant in the San Juan exhibitions since 1855. She developed religious themes, but also landscapes of a romantic nature such as the present one: three girls dipping their feet in the stream formed by a fountain. An ancient arch covered with moss and rocks sculpted on the horizon give the scene an idyllic setting.