Amparo

Amparo of 1904, in the MNAC, shares its title with the Spanish word meaning shelter or protection — again a name that doubles as a condition, and in this case one marked by irony given the subject's likely lack of social protection. Nonell's naming practice across the Roma series consistently uses this doubling — personal name and emotional or social category fused — as a way of integrating individual and representative dimensions of his subjects without reducing either. Amparo joins Dolores, Consuelo, and Pelona in a group of specifically named portraits within the series that carry their titles as additional layers of meaning rather than simple identification.

The handling of Amparo is characteristic of Nonell's 1904 Roma paintings: confident economical application of warm earth tones and shadows, the figure placed in the compressed spatial environment of a shallow pictorial space without defined background architecture. The face is rendered with the focused attention that distinguishes Nonell's named portraits from his more categorised figure studies.