La Chascona is a house in the

Barrio Bellavista Barrio Bellavista (''Bellavista Neighborhood'') is an area that lies between the Mapocho River and San Cristóbal Hill in Santiago, Chile. It is known as Santiago's bohemian quarter, with numerous restaurants, boutiques, avant-garde galleries, b ...

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, which was owned by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. La Chascona reflects Neruda's quirky style, in particular his love of the sea, and is now a popular destination for tourists. Neruda began work on the house in 1953 for his then secret lover,

Matilde Urrutia Matilde Urrutia Cerda (30 April 1912 – 5 January 1985) was the third wife of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, from 1966 until his death in 1973. They met in Santiago in 1946, when she was working as a physical therapist in Chile. She was the first woma ...

, whose curly red hair inspired the house’s name; ''chascona'' is a Chilean Spanish word of

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

origin referring to a wild mane of hair. In the house, there is a 1955 painting "Matilde" by

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

. It was given to Urrutia by Neruda. It depicted a two-faced Urrutia, one face depicting the Urrutia as the singer the public knew, and the other depicting the lover Neruda knew. The painting also has a hidden image; the profile view of Neruda's face hidden in her hair, showing their continuous secret relationship. Urrutia would become the poet’s third wife and she took on the task of restoring the house following the poet’s death in 1973, when La Chascona suffered damage during the

military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. La Chascona is managed today by the Pablo Neruda Foundation.

References

External links

* {{Chile-hist-stub Buildings and structures in Santiago Museums in Santiago, Chile Biographical museums in Chile Houses of Pablo Neruda Literary museums in Chile

See also

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External links