18th century Spanish school ‘Peasant couple’

Oil on canvas. This pair of 18th-century genre paintings depict a man and a woman of rural origin carrying heavy goods on their backs in wicker baskets. In the left-hand painting, the peasant walks hunched over with effort, leaning on a thick staff and wearing dark breeches, a reddish waistcoat, and a jacket. In the right-hand painting, the peasant woman pauses on a rocky outcrop, leaning on her staff; she wears traditional dress with a long skirt, bodice, apron, headscarf, and a rosary or other religious ornament hanging from her waist, while in the background the silhouette of the lagging man is subtly outlined. Both scenes unfold in open landscapes under overcast, leaden skies that lend a distinctly dramatic and solemn air to the everyday composition.

Size: 39 x 31 cm; Size with frame: 49.5 x 41.5 cm