Las vendedoras de flores

A leading proponent of Mexican modernism, Alfredo Ramos Martínez is best known for his late work celebrating the Indigenous peoples of his homeland. This drawing, executed after he had settled in the United States in 1930, is a romanticized scene of daily life featuring a procession of young women carrying baskets of fresh flowers to a public market. They are flower sellers from Xochimilco, a region south of Mexico City famous for its floating gardens and flower fields. Wearing traditional dress and long, braided hair, they are archetypes of beauty and elegance, analogues of the delicate flowers in their baskets. The high-key palette and rhythmic arrangement of forms contribute to the stylized idealization of this subject.