Washerwomen Disputing

José Jiménez Aranda (1837-1903) was born in Seville where he trained under Manuel Cabral Aguado Bejarano (1828-1891) and Eduardo Cano de la Peña (1823-1897). He specialised in small genre painting under the influence of José Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874) he met in Rome and from 1881 to 1890 he lived in Paris where he achieved notable success. He died in Seville in 1903.

This painting is a fine example of Aranda's small genre paintings or tableautin, a category in which he specialised quite early and improve over the years. This painting showing a realistic subject, washerwomen arguing in an untidy courtyard, is typical of the small ironic and frivolous pictures he produced during the 1870s.