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Lot Essay
For a sketch for the present picture (the picture itself not in Diener as it only emerged since 1998) see P. Diener, Rugendas, Augsburg, 1998, p.350, P-O-22, illustrated p.110.
Über seinen ganzen Arbeit aus Lima liegt ein hauch kultivierter Grazie.
G. Richert
In extreme financial difficulties, but funded by the sale of canvases painted for his friend William Wheelwright, the English entrepreneur in Valparaiso, Rugendas took passage on one of Wheelwright's steamers for Callao in November 1842 and stayed in Lima for the following nineteen months. He had been encouraged to visit Peru by his friend Juan Espinosa who was then living in Arequipa. If it had been his interest in the population, and particularly the Araucanian Indians in Chile, that had attracted him to South America on this second 'Gran Viaje' to the Americas, Peru, with its extraordinarily diverse population, ranging from the women of Lima in their mysterious dress (the covered ones or 'tapadas'), to the Indians of the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands, saw Rugendas quickly to work once again, portraying the viceroys and sketching the population and the rich culture of this ancient baroque relic of colonial America. He would return to Valparaiso in 1844 with over 500 'costumbrista' drawings taken in Lima and its surroundings.
Rugendas here paints a woman of Lima in her typical dress, wearing the saya de manto, bringing anonymity to her romantic liaison:
'The saya de manto was unique to Lima to the extent that, according to Ricardo Palma, it was not even worn in Callao. Moorish in origin, the manto allowed women to circulate freely around the city without fear of molestation. Yet if it was initially an emblem of female modesty, it came to serve a quite different purpose, functioning as a disguise that freed women from social constraints and allowed them to engage in playful flirting or to conduct secret liaisons, as Max Radiguet noted in the 1840s: 'The saya de manto, a costume which was originally designed to serve ideas of chastity and jealousy, has come through one of life's contradictions to act as cover for diametrically opposed customs; its uniformity makes the city one vast salon of intrigues and ingenious manoeuvres that mock the vigilances of the fiercest Othellos.' ... (J. Higgins, Lima: A Cultural History, Oxford, 2005, pp.85-7)
Über seinen ganzen Arbeit aus Lima liegt ein hauch kultivierter Grazie.
G. Richert
In extreme financial difficulties, but funded by the sale of canvases painted for his friend William Wheelwright, the English entrepreneur in Valparaiso, Rugendas took passage on one of Wheelwright's steamers for Callao in November 1842 and stayed in Lima for the following nineteen months. He had been encouraged to visit Peru by his friend Juan Espinosa who was then living in Arequipa. If it had been his interest in the population, and particularly the Araucanian Indians in Chile, that had attracted him to South America on this second 'Gran Viaje' to the Americas, Peru, with its extraordinarily diverse population, ranging from the women of Lima in their mysterious dress (the covered ones or 'tapadas'), to the Indians of the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands, saw Rugendas quickly to work once again, portraying the viceroys and sketching the population and the rich culture of this ancient baroque relic of colonial America. He would return to Valparaiso in 1844 with over 500 'costumbrista' drawings taken in Lima and its surroundings.
Rugendas here paints a woman of Lima in her typical dress, wearing the saya de manto, bringing anonymity to her romantic liaison:
'The saya de manto was unique to Lima to the extent that, according to Ricardo Palma, it was not even worn in Callao. Moorish in origin, the manto allowed women to circulate freely around the city without fear of molestation. Yet if it was initially an emblem of female modesty, it came to serve a quite different purpose, functioning as a disguise that freed women from social constraints and allowed them to engage in playful flirting or to conduct secret liaisons, as Max Radiguet noted in the 1840s: 'The saya de manto, a costume which was originally designed to serve ideas of chastity and jealousy, has come through one of life's contradictions to act as cover for diametrically opposed customs; its uniformity makes the city one vast salon of intrigues and ingenious manoeuvres that mock the vigilances of the fiercest Othellos.' ... (J. Higgins, Lima: A Cultural History, Oxford, 2005, pp.85-7)