A Street Scene in Sevilla

Thomas Eakins painted A Street Scene in Seville in 1870 during a winter trip to Spain. Working from the roof of his Seville hotel, he set up an easel to capture what he called "the most difficult kind of a picture," a subject in full sunlight. He hired a family of street musicians, the Requeñas, to pose for him over more than three months.

The loose brushwork reveals the influence of Velázquez and other Spanish Baroque masters Eakins had been studying. This was his first large-scale oil painting, challenging himself to adapt his rigorous academic training to working outdoors. The daughter Carmelita Requeña also inspired a spirited oil sketch.

The painting measures 159.4 x 106.7 cm and is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a gift of the Wolf Family in 2023.