Oil painting, 'Washerwomen Disputing', José Jiménez Aranda, 1871

In a courtyard scattered with piles of linen and dishes, a group of women is washing come clothes and arguing with others standing in front of them; a naked child and a small are playing on the ground.

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon, 1886
Ref: Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, (Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990), p.xx.
Joshua Dixon (1811-1885), was the son of Abraham Dixon of Whitehaven and brother of George Dixon (who was head of the foreign merchants firm of Rabone Brothers in Birmingham 1883-98). Educated at Leeds Grammar School, and was deputy chairman of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company 1869-70. Died Winslade, near Exeter, 7 December 1885. Bequeathed all his collection of drawings, watercolours and oil paintings to the Bethnal Green Museum; they have since been transferred to the V&A. He also collected engravings, Japanese vases and panels, and bronze and marble sculpture.

Historical significance: In this typically ironic painting of 1871 a group of washerwomen argue in a courtyard, while a dog and a child play together on the ground. The irony here lies in the contrast between the activity of the women, which implies cleanliness, and the untidiness of the courtyard, as well as the discrepancy between their humble status and theatrical attitudes. Similar small realistic pictures of the 1870s include By the Cradle and The Bullring, 1870, both private collection. His earthen palette is enlivened by touches of red.

José Jiménez Aranda (1837-1903) was born in Seville, where he trained under Manuel Cabral Aguado Bejarano (1828-1891) and Eduardo Cano de la Peña (1823-1897). From 1881 to 1890 lived in Paris, where he achieved notable success. He died at Seville.

Aranda's small paintings called tableautin belong to a genre which he appropriated from the Spanish painter Mariano José Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874) whom he met in Rome. Aranda adapted Fortuny y Marsal's style, known as Fortunismo, or 'preciosity', in which realistic subjects are treated with frivolity and irony. Aranda was Fortuny y Marsal's most representative follower in Spain, but his detailed execution and fine brushwork is closer to the style of Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891).

Paintings of everyday life were popular from the 17th century in Spain, where Francisco Pacheco in his Arte de la pintura (1649) called the naturalistic genre scenes of Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) 'bodegones', from the name of a rough public eating-place ('bodegon' in modern Spanish means 'still-life'). The genre was further developed by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). During the 19th century genre paintings emphasised social concerns, combined with a growing interest for the direct observation of nature and the rendering of light.

José Jiménez Aranda (1837-1903) was born in Seville where he trained under Manuel Cabral Aguado Bejarano (1828-1891) and Eduardo Cano de la Peña (1823-1897). He specialised in small genre painting under the influence of José Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874) he met in Rome and from 1881 to 1890 he lived in Paris where he achieved notable success. He died in Seville in 1903.

This painting is a fine example of Aranda's small genre paintings or tableautin, a category in which he specialised quite early and improve over the years. This painting showing a realistic subject, washerwomen arguing in an untidy courtyard, is typical of the small ironic and frivolous pictures he produced during the 1870s.

1065-1886