This painting was done by Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa at the start of his first period in Port de Pollença, Majorca, around 1915-1920. It represents a noria, a machine used to lift water from relatively deep mills, usually to irrigate crops. This mechanism was invented by Greek engineers in the Hellenistic period between the third and second century before Christ, and perfected towards the third century after Christ by Roman engineers. It is usually powered using animal traction. It was used all over the Mediterranean, and its Arab- Syrian name noria continued to be used in various modern languages (English, French, Spanish, and Italian.)

The noria occupied an important place in the Majorcan landscape in the early 1800s. This is demonstrated by the fact that 3,500 norias were counted on the island at the start of the second half of the nineteenth century. After 1850 however, due to the emergence of other technologies for the extraction of water such as the windmill, the noria tended to be abandoned or substituted, especially in the Majorcan municipalities which opted for intensive agriculture needing irrigation and destined for commercialisation. Some norias were abandoned, others were modified or destroyed. However, it should not be assumed that windmills and animal-driven norias did not coexist during the same period, as some municipalities continued to construct norias: in Pollença, for example, 50 mills were identified in 1872, and 111 in 1951. Other artists, such as Carlos de Haes, also explored this patrimonial element of the island’s landscape in their art during the nineteenth century.

In the present work, the preparatory drawing for which is conserved in the Fundación ‘la Caixa’ of Palma de Majorca, Anglada-Camarasa depicts a Majorcan noria, surely from the region of Port de Pollença where he lived. All the elements of the mechanism can be identified: the wheel with a perimeter of ceramic holders (conduits or buckets), which were filled with water as a result of its movement; the counter-wheel; the yoke resting on two stone pillars; the casing enclosing the wheel and the well, protected by a wooden barrier; and the surrounding stone platform destined for the path of the draft animal. Using quick brushstrokes and a palette of lively colours, characteristic of his work in Majorca, Anglada- Camarasa works up the image with an almost documentary approach.