Joaquín Sorolla Painter E-Book

Eric Thomsen

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 223

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Joaquín Sorolla (born in Valencia 1863 - died in Cercedilla 1923) is one of the most successful Spanish painters ever. He was a genius in capturing the essence of the scene he was painting. He was a master of light. Giving an overview of his incredible huge production with over 4,000 works is inherently a subjective choice by the curator. Like with an exhibition, what is the point you are making? This selection is not intended as a challenge to other experts, but a celebration of the genius. Joaquín Sorolla painted to please his patrons, to make money for a good living, to create a solid inheritance for his family and descendants. He was a deeply responsible father, shaped by his own childhood. He was Catholic and believed in mercy. He also had humor and he delighted in the artistic joke, which showed his friendly and beautiful spirit.

Leseprobe

About the authors

Cristina Berna loves photographing and writing. She also creates designs and advice on fashion and styling.

Eric Thomsen has published in science, economics and law, created exhibitions and arranged concerts.

Also by the authors:

World of Cakes

Luxembourg – a piece of cake

Florida Cakes

Catalan Pastis – Catalonian Cakes

Andalucian Delight

World of Art

Hokusai – 36 Views of Mt Fuji

Hiroshige 69 Stations of the Nakasendō

Hiroshige 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō

Hiroshige 100 Famous Views of Edo

Hiroshige Famous Vies of the Sixty-Odd Provinces

Hiroshige 36 Views of Mt Fuji 1852

Hiroshige 36 Views of Mt Fuji 1858

Joaquin Sorolla Landscapes

Joaquin Sorolla Beach

Joaquin Sorolla Boats

Joaquin Sorolla Animals

Joaquin Sorolla Family

Joaquin Sorolla Nudes

Joaquin Sorolla Portraits

and more titles

Outpets

Deer in Dyrehaven – Outpets in Denmark

Florida Outpets

Birds of Play

Christmas Nativity

Christmas Nativity – Spain

Christmas Nativities Luxembourg Trier

Christmas Nativity United States

Christmas Nativity Hallstatt

Christmas Nativity Salzburg

Christmas Nativity Slovenia

and more titles

Christmas Markets

Christmas Market Innsbruck

Christmas Market Vienna

Christmas Market Salzburg

Christmas Market Slovenia

and more titles

Missy’s Clan

Missy’s Clan – The Beginning

Missy’s Clan – Christmas

Missy’s Clan – Education

Missy’s Clan – Kittens

Missy’s Clan – Deer Friends

Missy’s Clan – Outpets

Missy’s Clan – Outpet Birds

and more titles

Vehicles

Copenhagen vehicles – and a trip to Sweden

Construction vehicles picture book

Trains

Contact the authors

[email protected]

Published by www.missysclan.net

Cover picture:

Front: Autoretratro, 1904

Inside: Autoretratro, 1909

Contents

Introduction

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastide

Formative years (1863-1888)

Estudio de pies

(

1876-79)

Autoretrato en perfil

(

1877-95)

Concepción de los Venerables

(

1876-79) (Murillo)

An Arab examining a Pistol

(

1881)

Female nude

(

1880)

Retrato de anciano

(

ca.1880)

Marina

(

1881)

Monja en oracíon

(

1883)

Estudio de Cristo

(

1883)

El 2 de Mayo

(

1884)

El Crit de Pelleter

(

1884)

Bacante en reposa

(

1986)

Desnudo feminine

(

1986)

Moro con naranjas

(

1985)

Santa en oración

(

1988)

Consolidation period (1889-1899)

Café de Paris

(

1885)

Los guitarristas, costumbres valencianas

(

1889)

La fuente, Buñol

(

1890-1895)

El pillo de playa

(

1891)

Otra Margarita

(

1892)

El beso de la reliquia

(

1893)

Trata de blancas

(

1894)

La Vuelta de la Pesca

(

1894)

Aún dicen que el pescado es caro

(

1894)

Retrato de Benito Pérez Galdós

(

1894)

Madre

(

1895)

Barca en la Albufera de Valencia

(

1895)

The Cove at Jávea

(

1895) two versions

Pescadores Valencianos

(

1895)

Cosiendo la vela

(

1896)

Joaquín Sorolla García vestido de blanco

(

1896)

Una investigación

(

1897)

La comida en la barca

(

1898)

Cordeleros de Jávea

(

1898)

Triste herencia

(

1899)

Culmination period (1900-1910)

Retrato del conde de Artal

(

1900)

Noria, Jávea

(

1900)

La niña María Figueroa vestida de menina

(

1901)

Mi familia

(

1901)

Retrato de Señora de Beruete

(

1901)

Desnudo de mujer

(

1902)

Mar y rocas de San Esteban, Asturias

(

1903)

Las tres velas

(

1903)

A la sombra de la barca, Valencia

(

1903-1904)

Autorretrato

(

1904)

Mis hijos

(

1904)

El niño de la barquita

(

1904)

El pescador

(

1904)

El bote blanco

(

1905)

Niño en las rocas, Jávea

(

1905)

Rocas de Jávea y el bote blanco

(

1905)

Retrato de Santiago Ramón y Cajal

(

1906)

Instantánea, Biarritz

(

1906)

Tormenta sobre Peñalara, Segovia

(

1906)

María convaleciente

(

1907)

Maria en La Granja

(

1907)

Portrait of señora de Urcola wearing a black mantilla

(

1909)

Retrato de Carlos Urcola Ibarra con su hija Eulalia

(

1914)

Pescadora con su hijo, Valencia

(

1908)

Paseo a orillas del mar

(

1909)

El baño del caballo (1909)

Young

Girl in a silvery Sea

(1909)

Clotilde sentada en un sofá

(

1910)

Corner of the Garden, Alcazar, Seville

(

1910)

Corte de las danzas, Alcazar, Seville

(

1910)

Children bathing at Valencia, Setting Sun

(

1910)

Final Period (1911-1920)

Visión de España

Aldeanos leoneses

(

1907)

Lavanderas de Galicia

(

1915)

Tipos del Roncal

(

1912)

Castilla: la fiesta del pan (1913)

Sevilla: Los nazarenos (1914)

Aragón: La jota (1914)

Navarra: El concejo del Roncal (1914)

Guipúzcua: Los bolos (1914)

Andalucía: El encierro (1914)

Sevilla: el baile (1915)

Sevilla: Los toreros (1915)

Galicia: La romería (1915)

Cataluña: El pescado (1915)

Pescadoras valencianas

(

1915)

Valencia: Las grupas (1916)

Extremadura: El mercado (1917)

Elche: El palmeral (1918-1919)

Ayamonte: La pesca del atún (1919)

Other works

Fifth Avenue, Nueva York

(

1911)

Portrait of Louis Comfort Tiffany

(

1911)

La Siesta

(

1912)

Desnuda en el divan Amarillo

(

1912)

Campos de trigo, Castela

(

1913)

Don Pio Baroja

(

1914)

Niña entrando en el baño

(

1915)

Jardín de la Casa Sorolla

(

c. 1916)

Capilla de la finca de Láchar

(

1917)

Orientalist scene, unknown title and date

Rompeolas, San Sebastián

(

1917-1918)

Cala de San Vicente, Mallorca

(

1919)

Jardín de la Casa Sorolla

(

1920)

References

Photo credits

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida painting “Niños en la playa, Valencia", 1910

Introduction

Joaquín Sorolla (born in Valencia 1863 - died in Cercedilla 1923) is one of the most successful Spanish painters ever. He was a genius in capturing the essence of the scene he was painting. He was a master of light.

Giving an overview of his incredible huge production with over 4,000 works is inherently a subjective choice by the curator. Like with an exhibition, what is the point you are making? This selection is not intended as a challenge to other experts, but a celebration of the genius.

Joaquín Sorolla painted to please his patrons, to make money for a good living, to create a solid inheritance for his family and descendants. He was a deeply responsible father, shaped by his own childhood. He was Catholic and believed in mercy.

He also had humor and he delighted in the artistic joke, which showed his friendly and beautiful spirit.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (born 27 February 1863 in Valencia – died 10 August 1923 in Cercedilla, Madrid) was a Spanish painter. Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the bright sunlight of his native land and sunlit water.

Sorolla was the eldest child born to a tradesman, also named Joaquin Sorolla, and his wife, Concepción Bastida. His sister, Concha, was born a year later. In August 1865, both children were orphaned when their parents died, possibly from cholera. They were then cared for by their maternal aunt and uncle, a locksmith

He received his initial art education at the age of 9 in his native town, and then under a succession of teachers including Cayetano Capuz and Salustiano Asenjo. At the age of eighteen he traveled to Madrid, vigorously studying master paintings in the Museo del Prado. After completing his military service, Sorolla, at age twenty-two, obtained a grant which enabled a four-year term to study painting in Rome, Italy, where he was welcomed by and found stability in the example of Francisco Pradilla, the director of the Spanish Academy in Rome. A long sojourn to Paris in 1885 with his friend Pedro Gil provided his first exposure to modern painting; of special influence were exhibitions of Jules Bastien-Lepage and Adolf von Menzel. Back in Rome he studied with José Benlliure, Emilio Sala and Jose Vellegas Cordero.

In 1888, Sorolla returned to Valencia to marry Clotilde García del Castillo, whom he had first met in 1879, while working in her father's studio. By 1895, they would have three children together: Maria, born in 1890, Joaquín, born in 1892, and Elena, born in 1895. In 1890, they moved to Madrid, and for the next decade Sorolla's efforts as an artist were focused mainly on the production of large canvases of orientalist, mythological, historical, and social subjects, for display in salons and international exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, Venice, Munich, Berlin and Chicago.

His first striking success was achieved with Another Marguerite (1892), which was awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in Madrid, then first prize at the Chicago International Exhibition, where it was acquired and subsequently donated to the Washington University Museum in St Louis, Missouri.

Portrait of the painter Joaquín de Sorolla y Bastida by José Jiménez Aranda in 1901

He soon rose to general fame and became the acknowledged head of the modern Spanish school of painting. His picture The Return from Fishing (1894) was much admired at the Paris Salon and was acquired by the state for the Musée du Luxembourg. It indicated the direction of his mature output.

Sorolla painted two masterpieces in 1897 linking art and science: Portrait of Dr. Simarro at the microscope and A Research. These paintings were presented at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts held in Madrid in that year and Sorolla won the Prize of Honor. Here, he presents his friend Simarro as a man of science who transmits his wisdom investigating and, in addition, it is the triumph of naturalism, as it recreates the indoor environment of the laboratory, catching the luminous atmosphere produced by the artificial reddish-yellow light of a gas burner that contrasts with the weak mauvish afternoon light that shines through the window. These paintings may be among the most outstanding world paintings of this genre.

An even greater turning point in Sorolla's career was marked by the painting and exhibition of Sad Inheritance (1899), an extremely large canvas, highly finished for public consideration. The subject was a depiction of crippled children bathing at the sea in Valencia, under the supervision of a monk. They are the victims of hereditary syphilis the title implies, perhaps. Campos has suggested that the polio epidemic that struck the lands of Valencia some years earlier is present, possibly for the first time in the history of painting, through the image of two affected children. The painting earned Sorolla his greatest official recognition, the Grand Prix and a medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, and the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1901.

A series of preparatory oil sketches for Sad Inheritance were painted with the greatest luminosity and bravura, and foretold an increasing interest in shimmering light and of a medium deftly handled. Sorolla thought well enough of these sketches that he presented two of them as gifts to American artists; one to John Singer Sargent, the other to William Merritt Chase. After this painting Sorolla never returned to a theme of such overt social consciousness.

The exhibit at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900 won him a medal of honour and his nomination as Knight of the Legion of Honour, within the next few years Sorolla was honoured as a member of the Fine Art Academies of Paris, Lisbon, and Valencia, and as a Favourite Son of Valencia.

A special exhibition of his works—figure subjects, landscapes and portraits—at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris in 1906 eclipsed all his earlier successes and led to his appointment as Officer of the Legion of Honour. The show included nearly 500 works, early paintings as well as recent sundrenched beach scenes, landscapes, and portraits, a productivity which amazed critics and was a financial triumph. Though subsequent large-scale exhibitions in Germany and London were greeted with more restraint, while in England in 1908 Sorolla met Archer Milton Huntington, who made him a member of The Hispanic Society of America in New York, and invited him to exhibit there in 1909. The exhibition comprised 356 paintings, 195 of which sold. Sorolla spent five months in America and painted more than twenty portraits.

Sorolla's work is often exhibited together with that of his contemporaries and friends, John

Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn.

Although formal portraiture was not Sorolla's genre of preference, because it tended to restrict his creative appetites and could reflect his lack of interest in his subjects, the acceptance of portrait commissions proved profitable, and the portrayal of his family was irresistible. Sometimes the influence of Velázquez was uppermost, as in My Family (1901), a reference to Las Meninas which grouped his wife and children in the foreground, the painter reflected, at work, in a distant mirror. At other times the desire to compete with his friend John Singer Sargent was evident, as in Portrait of Mrs. Ira Nelson Morris and her children (1911). A series of portraits produced in the United States in 1909, commissioned through the Hispanic Society of America, was capped by the Portrait of Mr. Taft, President of the United States. This portrait, which was painted at the White House, is on permanent display at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The appearance of sunlight could be counted on to rouse his interest, and it was outdoors where he found his ideal portrait settings. Thus, not only did his daughter pose standing in a sun-dappled landscape for María at La Granja (1907), but so did Spanish royalty, for the Portrait of King Alfonso XIII in a Hussar's Uniform (1907). For Portrait of Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1911), the American artist posed seated at his easel in his Long Island garden, surrounded by extravagant flowers. The conceit reaches its high point in My Wife and Daughters in the Garden (1910), in which the idea of traditional portraiture gives way to the sheer fluid delight of a painting constructed with thick passages of color, Sorolla's love of family and sunlight merged. Early in 1911, Sorolla visited the United States for a second time, and exhibited 152 new paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum and 161 at the Art Institute of Chicago a few weeks later. Later that year Sorolla met Archie Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. These 14 magnificent murals, installed to this day in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length. The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla's life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific 'Vision of Spain', eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locations to paint them: Navarre, Aragón, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche,S evilla, Andalucia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzca, Castile, León, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each mural celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted. He completed the final panel by July 1919.

Sorolla suffered a stroke in 1920, while painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. Paralysed for over three years, he died on 10 August 1923. He is buried in the Cementeri de Valencia, Spain.

The Sorolla Room, housing the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public in 1926. The room closed for remodeling in 2008, and the murals toured museums in Spain for the first time. The Sorolla Room reopened in 2010, with the murals on permanent display.

Sorolla's influence on some other Spanish painters, such as Alberto Play Rubio and Julio Romero de Torres, was so noted that they are described as "sorollista."

After his death, Sorolla's widow, Clotilde García del Castillo, left many of his paintings to the Spanish public. The paintings eventually formed the collection that is now known as the Museo Sorolla, which was the artist's house in Madrid. The museum opened in 1932.

Sorolla's work is represented in museums throughout Spain, Europe, America even Asia, and in many private collections in Europe and America. In 1933, J. Paul Getty purchased ten impressionist beach scenes made by Sorolla, several of which are now housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum.

The Spanish National Dance Company honored the painter's The Provinces of Spain by producing a ballet Sorolla based on the paintings. A high-speed RENFE train station has been named after Sorolla in Valencia.

Joaquín Sorolla painting King Alfonso XIII in La Granja, 1907

Formative years (1863-1888)

Estudio de pies

(1876-79)

Autoretrato en perfil

(1877-95)

Concepción de los Venerables

(1876-79)

An Arab examining a Pistol

(1881)

Female nude (1880)

Retrato de anciano

(ca.1880)

Marina

(1881)

Monja en oracíon

(1883)

Estudio de Cristo

(1883)

El 2 de Mayo

(1884)

El Crit de Pelleter

(1884)

Bacante en reposa

(1986)

Desnudo feminine

(1986)

Moro con naranjas

(1985)

Santa en oración

(1988)

The old convent, where Sorolla attended the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes of Valencia, in 1879, is now an exhibition center, Centro del Carmen.

Estudio de pies - Study of Feet (1876-79)

Sorolla was the eldest child born to a draper, also named Joaquin Sorolla, and his wife, Concepción Bastida. His sister, Concha, was born 4 December 1864. Both children were orphaned when their parents died abt 28 August 1865, possibly from cholera. They were then cared for by their maternal aunt and uncle, a locksmith. The schoolmaster noticed Joaquín Sorolla’s great drafting skills and urged his stepfather to develop the boy’s abilities.

Joaquín Sorolla received his initial art education at the age of 9 in his native town and started at the vocational school Artesanos in 1876 and for three years he attended his nightly drawing classes, which already enjoyed great prestige in artistic circles. Unpublished works, notes and other traces of the presence of Joaquín Sorolla in Artesanos already suggested the abilities of the great painter we know today. At school he enjoyed teachers such as Cayetano Capuz and prepared for the following stages of his training at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts. The three courses that Sorolla spent in these classrooms were crucial for his pictorial and personal training, judging by the pleasant memory he always kept of this stage and that he related to his family environment.

Among the works that are most representative are the "Ramillete de mandarinas -Tangerine Bouquet" a gift from Sorolla’s only son to the school in 1934, "Estudio de pies - Study of Feet", "Exotica", "Concepción de los Venerables - Conception of the Venerable" and "Niño dormido - Sleeping Child", made during his student days.

Autoretrato en perfil - Self portrait in profile 1878 - 1895

Painting, oil on canvas, the technique could point to Sorolla’s later development. Museo Sorolla, Image: Botaurus

Joaquín Sorolla was every mother-in-law’s dream, handsome, serious and hard working. His father and mother owned a fabric shop Six Dits (Six Fingers). Sorolla was baptized in the church Santa Catalina where his parents had married the year before. The family then moved to Calle Barcelona 8, a fishing neighborhood, which influenced Sorolla’s painting later. Joaquín and his sister Concepcíon were brought up by their mother’s sister, Isabel Bastida Prat and her husband José Piqueras Guillén, who lived at number 20 in the old Calle Llarga de la Sequiola. His uncle tried to teach Sorolla the trade, but Joaquín was focused on drawing. The night school Escuelas de Artesanos is now located at Avenida del Reino de Valencia 40 and has an oil painting and several drawings Sorolla did when he was at the school, all donated by his son Joaquín. When Sorolla enrolled in the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes of Valencia, he met the son of a famous photographer, Antonio Garcia. Sorolla became assistant to Garcia in 1879, and did retouché and coloring off. Photography was a developing art which influenced Sorolla tremendously. García had his house and photo studio in Plaza de San Francisco 10, now Plaza de Ajuntament. Compare to his portrait of his brother in law from 1887.

This is the original Concepción de los Venerables by Bartolomé Estaban Murillo 1617-1682, which he painted 1658 and which Sorolla copied in the period 1876-1879, image: Erzalibillas

A serious student of the arts as Joaquín Sorolla was, he studied and copied the old masters like Morillo, Velazquez and Goya in El Prado, Madrid.

Joaquín Sorolla copied the Concepción de los Venerables by Bartolomé Estaban Murillo 16171682, which Morillo painted 1658. Sorolla’s copy was exhibited by La Escuela de Artesanos de Valencia in 2008.

As mentioned Joaquín Sorolla was also trying to be every mother-in-law’s dream and he painted religious paintings which he gave to his future mother-in-law, Clotilde del Castillo Jareño and other works he gave to his future father-in-law Antonio Garcia Peris.

Joaquín Sorolla had set his eyes on their beautiful daughter Clotilde, when he was 15 and she was 14. Clotilde who was to become his future wife, in September 1888.

But first Sorolla became assistant to Garcia in 1879, and was received into their home as one of their own, receiving a small stipend and a makeshift studio. In 1881 Sorolla got his first own studio at Calle San Martín 9. In 1883 Sorolla moved his studio to Calle de la Corona in Valencia.

An Arab examining a Pistol 1881, H: 85 W: 60 cm, painting, oil on canvas, private collection, image: Botaurus

In those days it was fashionable for European artists to paint scenes from the Middle East, a movement known as the “Orientalists”. One of the best known was Mariano Fortuny 1838-1874.

The reader might ask why Spanish artists would dive into romanticizing piracy, white slavery, abduction of small blond girls for sex slavery, violence against Christians and special tax on Christians, given Spain’s own painful history with over 1,000 years of fighting to get rid of the Muslims after they invaded Spain in 711 AD, but the erotic fantasies had captivated a bourgeoisie with money to spend on art.

Sorolla painted 'Exotic', an orientalist scene depicting an Arab and an odalisque, made of continuous brown paper stained in sepia, with a striking effect.

However, Joaquín Sorolla would soon turn to other themes and when asked to do a great series later in life on the History of Spain for the Hispanic Society of America, he had the theme changed from the countless battle scenes with the Muslims into a portrait of Spanish regional culture as expressed in costumes and livelihoods.

Female nude ca 1880

Painting, oil on canvas, H: 70 cm W: 45 cm, Private collection

The first nude attributed to Joaquín Sorolla the authors came across was this apparently untitled painting of a nude woman from abt 1880. Sorolla was 17 years old at that time and shows a pretty good grasp of female physiognomy. The young lady is very slender and with full breasts like one of the boob cakes. Sorolla shows his humor already here, by placing the bust of Roman senator up to the left leering at the young girl. Her feet are a bit big for the classical ideal, see the statues of Venus de Medici and Venus de Milo. He was painting in the interimistic studio with his sponsor and future father in law, Antonio Garcia. Only in 1881 did he get his first own studio in 9, Calle San Martín, Valencia. Perhaps the painting was even painted in the classes at the art school. As will be seen below Sorolla went through a fantastic development in his ability to paint the nude, when he came to Rome to study as a border. The reader will enjoy seeing how Sorolla bloomed as an artist in a short span of time. His talent and his hard work is truly inspiring.

Retrato de anciano ca.1880, image: blogspot

This portrait shows very detailed brushstrokes. Sorolla is working hard to master his craft, he is developing his technical abilities.

Retrato de anciano (detail) ca 1880

It is a show case with very detailed brush strokes. Whether consciously the reader might conclude that Sorolla is advertising to get commissions for portraits. This line of work would later earn him a lot of money and he painted portraits of many important people. The reader is referred to the author’s series Joaquín Sorolla Portraits.

Marina 1881

Painting, oil on canvas, H: 44 cm W: 78 cm, Museo Sorolla, image: Botaurus

This harbor has a little of everything. It is a study of vessel types for further reference. It is beautifully done, but it lacks the in depth understanding of the activities of a harbor to make the reasoned connection to what is going on in the scene. The shipowner strives to have his vessel gainfully employed. A visit to the harbor is a costly break in the dreary routine of sailing. You may want to load or discharge, refuel, provision… The last thing you want your ship to do is to be in the harbor just to contribute to a pretty picture. Compare to the sailors in the Ayamente, el pesca de atún below. They are incidental to the

Marina, 1881 (detail, right) 1881

big machinery of shipping. They are down time, while cargoes are arranged and vessels repaired. In this detail there is a lot of activity, with small boats buzzing about the big ocean going vessels. The two steamships in the fore are transiting from sail to steam. They are empty, shown by the waterline. Maybe crews are being exchanged.

Monja en oracíon – Nun in Prayer 1883

Painting, oil on canvas, H: 81 cm W: 61 cm, image: screenshot

This painting won Sorolla a gold medal in the regional exhibition of Valencia in 1883. It is one of the first in a series of masterpieces that received acclaim from his peers in the art world.

There is a series of male nudes that are very similar in technique and appearance to this Nun in Prayer, see author’s Joaquín Sorolla Nudes ISBN ES 978-8-413-269-030.