Julia Wainwright Robbins

Julia Wainwright Robbins, painted in 1923 and held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, documents the circle of American women who sought portraits by Zuloaga during his triumphant 1920s American years. Julia Wainwright Robbins was connected to the wealthy Massachusetts and New York social world; her portrait exemplifies the wave of American commissions Zuloaga received before and after his celebrated 1925 exhibition at the Reinhardt Gallery in New York. The Metropolitan Museum's collection of several Zuloaga works reflects both institutional and private American enthusiasm for his work. American women sitters often received from Zuloaga a more internationalized treatment than his Spanish subjects — their costumes were less regionally specific, their settings less likely to include the Castilian landscape. Yet Zuloaga's formal language — the Spanish Baroque tradition of dark backgrounds, confident modeling, and psychological directness — remained constant regardless of subject nationality. The work belongs to the mature phase of a career that had begun in poverty in 1890s Paris.

The American commission portrait follows Zuloaga's established formal language adapted for an international clientele: less ethnic specificity in costume, more universal psychological focus on the face. The background is likely dark and compressed. Brushwork is accomplished and efficient — by 1923 Zuloaga could paint a strong likeness with remarkable economy.