Peasant woman in ciociaro costume 

Filippo Indoni painted this watercolor of a peasant woman in traditional Ciociaro costume in the late 19th century. The soft washes of color give the scene an airy, romantic feel. It’s a far cry from the hardscrabble reality of peasant life, which often involved spinning yarn with a distaff like the one held here. This hand-held tool kept the raw fiber organized while the spinner drew it out into thread. Indoni’s subject has clearly never broken a sweat at her work; this is a patronizing image of rural womanhood, painted for the pleasure of urban eyes. While appearing to document the dress and tools of the working class, Indoni’s picture transforms labor into a pretty genre scene. Paintings like this remind us that the choice of materials and subject matter always reflects a particular viewpoint, one that inevitably intersects with broader social and political realities.