+ Expand
Dimensions: 46 by 59.5 cm., 18 1/4 by 23 1/2 in.
+ Expand
Provenance: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTOR
Manuel Reina, Córdoba, (poet 1856-1905; purchased from the artist in 1900)
Thence by descent to the previous owner
+ Expand
Literature: Apuntes, Madrid, 1896
Rafael Doménech, Sorolla: Su vida y su obra, Madrid, 1910, fig. 23
Bernardino de Pantorba, La vida y la obra de Joaquín Sorolla, p. 178, no. 1306, catalogued
+ Expand
Notes: Sorolla was born and raised in Valencia, and his acute sensibility to the region and the local inhabitants is observed to electrifying effect in the present work. The fixed gaze of the child describes an intensity of feeling and innocent introspection that borders on the mesmeric. The free and rapid brush-strokes of the verdant, sunlit background serve to focus the viewer's gaze on the girl's complete self-absorption.
The 1890s was a period of intense activity for Sorolla, both as a young husband and as a hugely energetic artist with a gathering reputation. Newly wed, and recently returned from Italy with his young bride Clotilde (née García) the couple moved from their native Valencia to Madrid. Coincident with his new found domestic happiness, so Sorolla's professional fortunes began to develop a pace. The heady programme of international exhibitions to which Sorolla contributed works gives an idea of the painter's extraordinary drive at this time. As well as exhibiting widely in Madrid, during the decade his work was included in national exhibitions in Munich, Vienna and Berlin; it formed part of the first three Biennales to be held in Venice in 1895, 1897 and 1899, and was selected for the Paris Salons of 1893, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1899. Across the Atlantic Sorolla's work was shown in Buenos Aires and Chicago.
Many of the works exhibited by Sorolla received awards. One such painting was La vuelta de la pesca (The Return from Fishing), which received a second class medal at the Paris Salon of 1895 and was purchased by the French government for the collection of the Musée du Luxembourg - the artist's first work to enter a national collection abroad. The following year Pescadores Valencianos (Valencian Fishermen) won the gold medal at the Berlin international exhibition where it was acquired for the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. And in 1899, following the exhibition of seven of his works at the National Exhibition in Madrid, Sorolla was awarded the title of 'Caballero de la Gran Cruz de Isabel la Católica' (Knight of the Cross of Isabel the Catholic) at the age of just thirty-six. In 1900 his reputation was assured at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. There he showed six works and won both the Grand Prix awarded to the Spanish section, and one of twenty special medals that he shared with other artists of international stature of the time including Alma Tadema, Klimt, Sargent and Zorn.
As Sorolla sought his own particular style during the 1890s, so his work varied in subject and format. In part his chosen themes were influenced by the spirit of social realism that pervaded the novels of his close friend the writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. The result were such large scale deliberations on the social isolation and injustices to be found in contemporary society as Otra Margarita (Another Marguerite) of 1892 (Washington University Gallery, St Louis, Missouri), a painting of the interior of a third class railway carriage. In similar spirit, at the end of the decade he completed Triste Herencia (Sad Inheritance), a painting of crippled children bathing (Caja de Ahorros, Valencia). Equally, however, his themes, were dictated by what local and international exhibiting bodies considered sufficiently serious for consideration. Thus he completed large scale works including Kissing the Relic of 1893 (Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao) for which he won medals in Paris, Vienna and Bilbao and I am the Bread of Life.
As his confidence grew, however, it was increasingly his depictions of Valencian subjects that inspired his brush. Aware of his predilection for such motifs he commented 'I like going back to Valencia, and I keep on finding new "subjects for studies" there.' (Carmen García in Sorolla, The Painter, London, 1989, (p. 83). Observed with a gritty realism, these canvases are infused with a rhythmic poetry of composition that celebrates different local types. It was this new found genre writ large (265 by 403cm) that had so impressed the French State when they acquired La vuelta de la pesca at the Paris Salon of 1895, and it is this combination of acute sensibility to the region and his concentrated observation of his subject that embues the present work with an intensity of feeling that shows the artist at his consummate best.
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Sra. Blanca Pons Sorolla and it will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist.
We're Hiring!
