The Spinners The tale of Arachne
Features
Artwork title: Le Filatrici (La favola di Aracne)
Age: 19th Century / 1801 - 1900
Subject: Allegorical/Mythological Subject
Artistic technique: Painting
Technical specification: Oil on Canvas
Description : Le Filatrici (La favola di Aracne)
Oil painting on canvas. It is a beautiful copy of the famous masterpiece by Diego Velazquez, made around 1657 and kept in the Prado Museum. Until the mid-twentieth century the painting was entitled "The tapestry factory of Santa Isabella in Madrid": only in 1948, in fact, the studies of the historian and art critic Diego Angulo Íñiguez allowed to identify a relationship between the painting and the ancient Greek myth of Arachne. In the scene, in the foreground, some spinners work in an unadorned and poorly lit room by a soft light reflected from the environment behind. There are five women: on the left, in the dim light, the oldest who drives the stripper wheel; in front of her, on the right, in full light, a young girl who collects the thread in the reel; they would be the representations of Athena, still hidden under false guise, and the human Arachne, during their competition. The other three women are simply the outline, the central one is just a static silhouette. In the background, central and illuminated by a powerful beam of light that emerges from the left, as well as enlivened by the bright colors of the tapestry and the clothes, the scene of the revelation of the goddess to the woman. The copy proposed here has a Paris inventory and forwarder label on the back. It has undergone a restoration by tearing the canvas. The work is presented in a contemporary gilded frame.
Product Condition:
Product in good condition, with small signs of wear.
Frame Size (cm):
Height: 108
Width: 135
Depth: 6
Artwork dimensions (cm):
Height: 90
Width: 116