‘Another Margarita’ depicts poverty and despair in Spain

On a sunlit train, a woman sits with her head bowed on a hard wooden bench. Her hands are cuffed, and a worn bundle rests beside her. Two men in military uniforms stand behind, keeping watch. What crime could have reduced her to such a pitiful state?

"Another Margarita" (1892) marked a turning point in Joaquín Sorolla’s career, earning him the title “painter of light.” Before Picasso rose to fame, Sorolla was Spain’s most renowned painter. He became famous for his luminous depictions of everyday life on the beach, but in his early years, he also portrayed the darker sides of society.

This painting is based on a scene he personally witnessed on a third-class train traveling between Madrid and Valencia. Two civil guards are escorting a female prisoner to her trial. At the time, the name Margarita was slang for a prostitute in Valencia and also evokes the name of the infant killer in Goethe’s Faust.

Was the woman in the painting a prostitute who had killed her child? That is highly likely. Sorolla, then a father of a two-year-old daughter, would have found the scene especially shocking.

The train carriage is cold and empty. Among the three figures dressed in black, there is neither conversation nor warmth. The harsh sunlight streaming through the window emphasizes the woman’s shame and misery. She is being taken to court, yet in the court of society, she may have long endured the hellish punishment of life itself.

Sorolla gained international recognition for this work, winning major awards at exhibitions in Spain and the United States. Yet he may have sought to ask a deeper question: Even if the consequences of sin fall on the individual, who created the chains of poverty and despair that drove this woman to the brink? Does our society continue to produce another Margarita even today?