Anselmo Guinea is regarded as one of the most outstanding exponents of Basque fin-de-siècle painting. Possessed by a restless spirit, he engaged with many languages and explored different aesthetic paths, always taking on board the emerging artistic innovations of the time to give shape to a highly personal style, defined by heightened precision in drawing, careful execution and absolute mastery of colour.

Like so many other artists sent to Rome with a scholarship in the 1870s and 1880s, Guinea incorporated into his work the fascination he felt for the Roman countryside and for popular Italian types, with their bright and picturesque costumes, inserting, as we may see in this painting, anecdotal details to give his works greater expressive effects.

Most likely created at the end of the summer of 1885, during his second stay in Italy, this work is an evident example of the depiction of Italian customs and manners that earned Guinea great popularity. He had developed this subject matter in another work, painted shortly beforehand, titled Il ritorno della Madonna, and also in other oil and watercolour paintings from 1885 depicting female figures isolated in the Roman countryside, which he would later use as models in his group compositions.

Worth underscoring is the compositional ambition of the work as a whole, with its interesting study of perspective using a central diagonal line to organise the scene, featuring a group of peasants caught in a downpour. A fairly standard anecdotal scene during this period provides the artist an excuse to portray the various attitudes and reactions of the characters, instilling great dynamism into the painting. In turn, we perceive a thorough study of colour: the dull restrained palette of browns, blues, greens and greys is enlivened by touches of warmer colours that give the work many contrasts, points of light and depth.

Regreso de la fiesta (Returning from the Festival) was very likely created as a wedding gift from Guinea and his wife Valentina Zuazaga to their friend Antonio Plasencia and his second wife Dolores Garamendi. That would lead us to suppose that the work had travelled from Rome to Bilbao at the end of 1885, when the wedding took place.