3-098-927 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Floreal, 1915. An allegory of the wealth and exuberance of young Valencian men and women, dressed in regional costumes and laden with fruit, flowers, and a chicken. They may be on their way to market, or possibly going to make an offering to a saint. The painting may be an allegory of spring, since Floreal was the month in the French Republican calendar that coincided with spring, that is, with the full bloom of nature. The silks and brocades of the fallera dresses display a richness rarely afforded by Valencian farm women and market gardeners. The characters belong to the artist's family circle: his daughter María Teresa (the girl carrying flowers), his wife, his friend Emilio Marco, and three young women who were friends of the family. The bunch of oranges carried by the young man occupies special prominence. The orange, the driving force of the Valencian economy, became an almost obligatory reference in regionalist painting, a local symbol of wealth and prosperity, an exaltation of progress linked to agriculture.