Full Body Self-Portrait

‘Autorretrato de cuerpo entero’ (Full Body Self-Portrait) by the Spanish modernist painter María Roësset Mosquera (1881–1921), who professionally signed her canvases as MaRo, is a captivating breakthrough in early 20th-century Iberian portraiture. The composition is a bold reimagining of traditional concepts of femininity in Edwardian Spain. MaRo is posed in a very abstracted, almost hostile manner, with her body completely upright, facing an even, monochromatic reddish-brown background. Having been widowed at the young age of 28 just two years before the work’s execution, she subverts traditional mourning codes. Rather than assuming a posture of pious submission, she models an elegant, avant-garde black gown that emphasizes her tall, elongated frame. Her sharp, piercing glance and short, natural curls exude independence and contemporary cosmopolitanism. Art historians mention that the painting combines two different worlds of creation: a profound respect for the strict and dramatic realism of the Spanish Baroque portraits, which she meticulously copied at the Prado, and a sunny, cosmopolitan interest in Orientalism and early European Expressionism. The canvas was hidden from the public eye in the private sphere of the Roësset estate and became visible in a groundbreaking retrospective held in Madrid in 1988 in the Cuartel del Conde-Duque. It was formally donated by the painter’s daughter in 1993. It was picked by the Prado to hang in the historic exhibition Invitadas, which closed in 1995, giving it global fame. The portrait of her was installed there for its symbolic significance and is a prime example of an artistic ‘step forward’, where MaRo affirms herself as the pioneering woman creator of a new generation of artists, such as her nephew, the tragic sculptor Marga Gil Roësset.