Diego Velázquez (1599–1660). Peasants at the Table, ca. 1618–19. Oil on canvas, 96 x 112 cm. Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Times of technological and political change often result in social change as well. This section of the exhibition includes paintings that reveal changing societal attitudes toward the role of women and the working class. For much of European history, artists adhered to strict rules about what subject matter was appropriate for art. Much of the surviving art from the first and second millennium CE depicts religious or mythical scenes or figures, or the ruling class and their accomplishments. Images of homes and women at work were relegated to small canvases, appropriate for sale and display but constituting only a tiny part of the economy of the art world. The working classes, when they were depicted, were portrayed in the context of a moralizing narrative. It was the emergence of an independent art market, where artists could sell their work privately, rather than painting only on commission, that made domestic scenes viable.

The “domestic world” can be seen as a metaphor for the traditional female sphere. Before the twentieth century, the home was thought of as women’s domain, while men dealt with the political and economic worlds. Sewing is a symbol of domesticity; in art, a woman sewing is often a sign of her moral goodness, as she does the tasks assigned to her.

In the sixteenth century, Spain made the transition from the medieval world of the town to the modern world of the nation, as gold from the New World flowed in, funding wars and wreaking havoc with the economy. The expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the Moors around 1610 nearly bankrupted landlords and bankers. The cities were full of thieves and beggars, only some of whom held the legally required certificate allowing them to beg.

In the nineteenth century, industrialization again transformed the world. The promise of work in factories brought people to the cities in increasing numbers, where they often worked long hours under dangerous, uncomfortable, and unhealthy conditions, for very little money. Living conditions were equally appalling, and artists, who frequently lived among the working class, created poignant commentary about the lives they witnessed.

About the works

In this piece, painted early in Diego Velázquez’s career, two men and a woman sit at a table, eating and drinking. The woman’s attention is very carefully focused on her task: pouring a drink for the man to her right. The man on her left talks animatedly, perhaps using his hands for emphasis. The food and tableware are carefully arranged in the foreground of the painting, attracting our attention. The clothing of the subjects tells us that these are working-class people, most likely in a tavern. However, the white tablecloth is an anomaly, for it never would have been found in such a setting.

Early in his career, Velázquez made his reputation painting bodegones, scenes that included food and often people at tables. Bodegones were a newly popular genre, paralleled in literature by picaresque novels, in which a rogue with little money goes on an adventure, surviving by his wits while commenting satirically on the world around him.

Why did Velázquez’s paintings of the working class appeal to art buyers, who would have purchased these pictures to hang in their homes? They are certainly skillfully made, showcasing the artist’s great talent. They would have served as a relief from religious art, designed to teach lessons and morals to the viewer. The popularity of these paintings may have also reflected a changing attitude toward the poor in seventeenth-century Spain, displaying a new sense of compassion and charity.

The woman depicted here is bent over her ironing. She uses a heavy, old-fashioned iron, which would require constant reheating at a hot open fireplace nearby. A bowl on the table holds water; beside it is a cloth for sprinkling water on the fabric as she irons. She is agonizingly thin and hunched over with the pressure she places on the iron.

Like Velázquez’s Peasants at the Table, this work is a fairly early one in the artist’s career. It was made during a time when Pablo Picasso himself was living in poverty and struggling to survive as an artist. Paintings of women ironing were not uncommon at the time, as more and more artists had begun to depict the working class. But unlike other variations on this theme, Woman Ironing presents an icon rather than a scene: Picasso shows us a single figure, focused on her task, against a background that is nearly erased.

Ironing and washing clothes in laundries was a common occupation of women in late-nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Europe. It was a difficult job, physically demanding, performed in a hot, crowded room, and poorly paid. Picasso spent a number of years early in his career painting the poor: hungry children, street musicians, circus families. These paintings provide glimpses into the world of the lower class one hundred years ago. Picasso may have felt that, as a poor artist, he was showing his own world. He may also have found suffering and endurance in the face of hardship to be inspiring. He once said, “Art emanates from pain and sadness.”

Art historians suggest that Picasso was more interested in the romantic agony of this woman’s situation than in offering a social critique, believing that her situation, which she faces without complaint, ennobled her. The painting recalls El Greco’s figures, with their elongated bodies and faces and clear outlines, and Woman Ironing may be compared with the earlier artist’s images of martyrs.

• Pose like the woman in Picasso’s Woman Ironing. How might this woman feel? If she could speak, what might she tell you about her work? About her life? About her hopes for the future?
• Imagine you are a wealthy merchant from the seventeenth century, considering buying Velázquez’s Peasants at the Table for your home. Why might this work appeal to you? Why not?
• Compare the people in Velázquez’s painting to the figure in Picasso’s Woman Ironing. How are they similar? Different? What different ideas about the working class do you think the two paintings suggest? How is our contemporary idea of the “working class” similar to or different from these two artists’ ideas?

• Woman Ironing was made during an era of great social change: as a result of the Industrial Revolution, people had moved to the cities in droves, resulting in great poverty and a low standard of living. What types of social changes are happening now one hundred years later? What type of person would you choose to represent these changes? Paint a portrait or write a poem about this character, capturing their daily experience.
  Social Studies


• As the turn of the twentieth century approached, several artists explored the theme of women ironing, including Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet. Look at Degas’s Women Ironing (1884) and compare and contrast it with Picasso’s interpretation.
  Visual Arts


• The electric irons of today are very different from the iron in Picasso’s time. Research how ironing was accomplished before electricity and permanent-press fabrics.
  Social Studies


• During the 1880s in the United States, photographer Jacob Riis (1849–1914) documented the plight of poor children, immigrants, and tenement dwellers on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His book How the Other Half Lives became a pivotal work that precipitated much-needed reforms. It is still in print and also available on the Internet. Compare Picasso’s Woman Ironing with Riis’s photographs. Which images do you find most sympathetic? Why?
  Social Studies