Zingara is one of the most beautiful portraits done in Paris. The lady is a mature gypsy woman, with remarkable features. She looks serious, bored, but daring. Today the picture belongs to architect David Bastos, in São Paulo.

Diógenes Rebouças drew attention to one of the pictorial resources used – the lack of painting on some parts of the canvas, which becomes part of the picture’s composition, a technique learned with Émile Renard.  Valença would repeat the techniques learned with the French master in different portraits. One of these is called esfregaço (smear), which means using the finger on the brushstroke to model a muscle. In other words, the painter would model the muscle on a portrait as if it were a sculpture.

SPÍNOLA, Vera. Conversando com a Pintura de Alberto Valença: Um romance biográfico. p. 57-58.