The Harvest, Roman Countryside

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

A Spanish-born artist who spent his career in Italy, Ramón Tusquets y Maignon immersed himself in the Roman countryside in the 1870s, capturing the difficult daily labor of rural life. Although he lived in Rome from 1865 until his death in 1904, Tusquets retained his ties to Spain and sent works to be exhibited there. This painting was included in the 1871 Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes, in Madrid, where it was widely admired and quickly acquired for a prestigious private collection. One critic described the painting as a “giant step” for the artist, writing “one does not know what to admire more—the naturalness and simplicity with which the subject matter was developed or the accuracy of the attitude and expression of the figures; or the correctness or the drawing; or the appropriateness and freshness of the color; of the diaphanous light and soft atmosphere that bathes it; or the harmony of the whole.” Europe