Between 2018 and 2020 Carmen Laffón (b. Seville, 1934 - d. Seville, 2021) carried out what was to be her last commission for the Banco de España Collection: a portrait of economist Luis María Linde (b. Madrid, 1945), who was governor of the Bank from 2012 to 2018. To date this work has been seen only in the bank's own portrait gallery. This gallery was set up in the  late 18th century. It contains portraits of personages associated with the bank or with the state, including works by the finest artists of each period in history since its founding, such as Goya, Sorolla, Zuloaga and Laffón herself. For this portrait Linde sat for the artist on several occasions in her studio in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, though the background that she chose was an iconic part of the bank's great headquarters building on Calle de Alcalá in Madrid. The room in question is the recently renovated library reading room, which was designed originally in 1891 as a trading room, with an elegant trading floor surrounded by white cast-iron trellis-work. This light structure can be seen behind the sitter. In Laffón's painting it looks like lace or embroidered tulle, and is the source of the light in the painting. As such it creates a lyrical, evanescent atmosphere that dilutes the forms shown. Despite the apparently limited palette of whites, greys and ochres, from close up the work shows great richness in colour and texture. The governor is seated on the first-floor gallery, and gazes straight at the viewer. Unusually for institutional portraits, the work is in semi-shadow with partial back lighting from the right-hand side.

Aside from the sitter himself, the stand-out features are the light and the endless array of shades of white. It is worth noting that while she was painting this portrait Laffón was also engaged in producing her last major series, comprising large-format works showing the Bonanza salt flats in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It was in this part of the province of Cadiz that Laffón first began to paint as a child, and it was to there that she returned for the theme of her last exhibition —'Salt'—, which opened at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid during the COVID-19 pandemic (this was an itinerant exhibition which had previously been shown at the CAAC in Seville and the Patio Herreriano Museum in Valladolid). Though she never really abandoned the figurative art that characterised her throughout her career, in some fragments of these pictures she develops whites in the direction of abstraction, in a style reminiscent of the works of Agnes Martín. There is therefore a dialogue and a cross-fertilisation between this last portrait and her pictures of the salt flats. They share a silent, serene atmosphere that reflects not only what Laffón saw but also what sparked emotion in her. It is a painting that requires unhurried contemplation.

Isabel Tejeda