Spanish school, ca. 1870-1880. "Portrait of a lady. Oil on canvas. Size: 89 x 72 cm; 105 x 89 cm (frame). In this canvas the author offers us the portrait of an elderly woman, represented in the foreground, half-length on a neutral background that manages to introduce a greater impression of three-dimensionality in the image. Particularly striking is the woman's gesture, who looks forward in a concentrated attitude, thus establishing contact with the viewer. The fur coat covering her torso, together with the velvety skirt and the jewellery around her ears, indicate her bourgeois character. As in the rest of Europe, in the 18th century portraiture became the leading genre par excellence in Spanish painting as a result of the new social structures, embodying the ultimate expression of the transformation in the taste and mentality of the new bourgeois clientele. This genre embodies the permanent presence of the image of its protagonists, to be enjoyed in the intimacy of a studio, in the daily warmth of a family cabinet or presiding over the main rooms of the house.