Profile of a Gypsy Woman

Profile of a Gypsy Woman of 1902, in the MNAC, takes the profile view — classical and antique in its references — and applies it to a Roma woman whose material circumstances are entirely outside the classical tradition's idealised subjects. The profile portrait has specific art-historical weight: it is the format of commemorative medals, of Roman busts, of quattrocento panel portraits. Nonell's use of it for a Roma woman living in poverty in Barcelona's old city is an act of artistic recalibration — asserting the formal dignity of a person typically excluded from such categories. The 1902 date places this in the early most concentrated phase of his Roma series.

The profile format allows Nonell to render the distinctive facial structure of his sitter with particular clarity, the silhouette against a dark background creating a clean graphic statement. The paint within the profile is more textured and varied than the silhouette's edge suggests, the face built from careful tonal adjustment that gives the form volume despite the strictly lateral orientation.