Joaquín Sorolla Y Bastida

LOT 221 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION JOAQUÍN SOROLLA SPANISH 1863 - 1923 NIÑOS EN LA PLAYA, VALENCIA (CHILDREN ON THE BEACH, VALENCIA) signed J Sorolla B lower left; signed and inscribed En el baño. Valencia / J. Sorolla on the reverse oil on canvas 70 by 100cm., 27½ by 39½in.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863-1923) Los Palangreros signed, dedicated, inscribed and dated 'Al Sr. D. Jesús Vidal su respetuoso amigo/J. Sorolla y Bastida Valencia, 1902' (lower right) oil on canvas 26 x 35 in. (66 x 89 cm.) Painted circa 1898-99. The artist. Gift from the above to D. Jesüs Vidal, New York, 1902. with Anderson Galleries, New York. Anonymous sale; Parke Bernet, New York, 23 March 1939, lot 38. Collection F. Schnittjer & Son, New York. Their sale, Parke Bernet, New York, 14 January 1943, lot 84. with Wildenstein, Buenos Aires. Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner, 1947. B. de Pantorba, La vida y la obra de Joaquín Sorolla, Madrid, 1970, p. 176, no. 1372. Salón Witcomb, Buenos Aires, III Exposición de pinturas, Arte Moderna, Escuela Española, no. 102. This sensitively painted and profoundly sympathetic image of two fishermen repairing their lines was painted when Sorolla was on the cusp of international fame. The artist had consolidated his domestic reputation only five years earlier, with his monumental painting Return from fishing, inspired by fishermen working at the water's edge, one of the principal themes that have come to define Sorolla in the public imagination. Throughout the 1890s Sorolla honed his artistic skills, moving away from a somewhat tight and precise style, similar to that of painters like Jiménez Aranda, to one which was looser, more intense and almost photographic in quality, and applied more and more frequently to large canvases depicting the coastal life of the artist's native Valencia. In these masterpieces of outdoor painting, which breathe sea, light and air, the humble activities of fishermen were lent gravitas and drama by the daring use of composition and intense colour, which imbued the figures in his pictures with an almost Homeric sense of dignity and power. Key among Sorolla's unique skills was to ennoble his subject matter without any hint of sentimentality, a quality which shines through the present work. The composition is closely cropped, focussing on the enclosed space in which the two figures work, and emphasizing the quiet absorbtion in their work. The soft, even light, suggests the two men are working at the end of a long day; the tanned, grizzled face of the older fisherman contrasts with that of his half-seen companion, hinting at a hard life lived out of doors, while the rough textures of their clothing and of the simple white washed walls exude a sense of almost Franciscan simplicity. Like a great documentary photographer, capturing his subject unawares, Sorolla has managed to both anchor his subject in time and space, while making a simple image pregnant with meaning.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863-1923) Barcas en el puerto (Boats in port) oil on board 4½ x 6½ in. (11.4 x 16.5 cm.) Painted in 1910 Estate of the artist (series A, no. 39). María Sorolla García, thence by descent. Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 16 November 2005, lot 100A. Private collection, Florida. PROPERTY FROM A FLORIDA COLLECTION B. Pons-Sorolla, Joaquín Sorolla: vida y obra, Madrid, 2001, p. 735, no. 226, illustrated, p. 366. B. Torres González, Sorolla: La magia de la luz, Madrid, 2005, p. 57, illustrated. Painted in the Basque region of Spain in either the coastal town of San Sebastián or Guetaria, Barcas en el puerto is a highly finished example of one of Sorolla's apuntes, the small oil sketches that the artist completed outdoors. Not intended as studies for larger canvases, the apuntes are complete paintings in their own right. While usually diminutive, they powerfully convey the essence of Sorolla's work as a pursuit of capturing light and movement. The vibrant patchwork of colors, vivid flecks of sunlight and dynamic brushstrokes found in Barcas en el puerto fully express his signature plein-air naturalism. Sorolla was already enjoying international success by the time he executed this work in 1910, having had well-received exhibitions in Berlin, London, New York, Chicago, and St. Louis. The following year he was to begin discussions with the Hispanic Society of America regarding the monumental panorama, the Vision of Spain, which would become his magnum opus. We are grateful to Blanca Pons-Sorolla for confirming the authenticity of this painting which will be included in her forthcoming Sorolla catalogue raisonné with the provisional number of BPS 2233.

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863-1923) A landscape with figure in Sagunto, Valencia signed and inscribed 'J Sorolla/Sagunto'(lower right) oil on canvas 66.5 x 52cm (26 3/16 x 20 1/2in). LITERATURE: Bernardino de Pantorba, La vida y la obra de Joaquín Sorolla , Madrid, 1953, no. 1229 Catalogue raisonne Blanca Pons–Sorolla, Madrid, no. BPS 3648 To be sold with an original certificate of authenticity issued by Blanca–Pons Sorolla Ruiz de la Prada, 2 August 2002. A certificate was also issued by Francisco Pons-Sorolla y Arnau, 10 July 1986. The present lot was painted in Sagunto circa 1889. It is most probable that this is the same painting titled Sagunto which was exhibited in La Exposición del Salón Hernández de Madrid in 1890. This was an interesting period in Sorolla's career, when he was assimilating the lessons of Bastien-Lepage and the growing naturalist movement that he had witnessed at the 1885 Bastien-Lepage retrospective and the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. This is evident in the present lot, where Sorolla integrates the figure into the strong, bright Valencian landscape, a theme further explored in one of his major compositions of the same period, Valencian dance in the orange grove , in the Villar-Mir Collection in Madrid.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863-1923) A la Orilla del Mar signed and dated 'J Sorolla y Bastida/1908' (lower left); and inscribed 'no. 86.' (on the reverse) oil on canvas 51 x 41 in. (129.5 x 104.2 cm.) Geneviève Garvan Brady, New York, 1909, thence by descent. Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 22 May 1997, lot 165. THE PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR C. Brinton, Sorolla at the Hispanic Society. Eight Essays on Sorolla, New York, 1909, p. 285, no. 86 (illustrated). B. de Pantorba, La Vida y la Obra de Joaquín Sorolla, Madrid, 1935, no. 1671. New York, Hispanic Society of America, Paintings by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, 8 February - 8 March 1909, no. 86. (this exhibition later travelled to Buffalo, Fine Arts Academy, and to Boston, Copley Society, until 11 May 1909). A la orilla del mar displays Sorolla's deep sensitivity towards family life, children and the light and water of his beloved beach at Valencia. These eternal themes, combined with a bravura style that was radical yet immediately arresting, launched the artist towards international fame. Sorolla had first exhibited abroad at the prestigious Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in 1906 to great acclaim. The following year he had successful one-man exhibitions in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Cologne but he declined to attend in person, preferring to remain in La Granja de San Ildefonso with his daughter Maria, who was recovering from tuberculosis. At the end of 1907, after a long absence from the sea, he travelled back to his native Valencia to work on new paintings for his next exhibition which was to take place at the Grafton Gallery in London in 1908 (see lot 59). Sorolla wrote to his wife, "I have a hunger to paint that I have never felt before, it swallows me, overpowers me, it is an obsession..." Encouraged by his success, 1908 was one of his more prolific years. In the first months of the year he ventured to Seville to paint a portrait of the Queen and later he went to London to preside over his exhibition. While this may not have resulted in as many sales as Sorolla had anticipated, it was significant in that it made possible the meeting between Sorolla and the American collector, Archer Milton Huntington, the founder and President of the newly-stablished Hispanic Society of America. He was immediately drawn to the work of the Spanish master and undertook to promote him in America. Sorolla was equally excited by the opportunity and returned to Valencia for the summer of 1908 to paint. During these months he painted over 60 pictures, including this work and many of his most beautiful beach scenes, which were intended for his New York exhibition. The palette that Sorolla utilized during this time is brilliant, and his style was characterised by its fluid spontaneity and ever larger brushstrokes. A la orilla del mar is a charming scene depicting the daily life of the Valencian seashore. A fishwife is shown entertaining her young son by the seashore as they wait for the return of the fishing boats. Sorolla's first working of the composition depicted the mother and child in a smaller format. He subsequently sewed a second canvas to the top portion of the picture, thereby allowing him to expand the composition and to depict the sea and sky above the figures. By raising the horizon line, Sorolla gives the painting greater depth, and also invigorates the painting with tonal variations and complementary colours. The strong flesh tones, oranges and yellows play off the greeny-blue of the mother's skirt in the same way as the sand does off the sea. Perez de Ayala, referring to Sorolla's painting at this time, wrote: "No other artist was able to so successfully reveal to us the subtleties of increasing values of light and to capture the truth of life." The theme of mother and child was close to Sorolla's heart. He painted his own family frequently, often in poignant images which avoid any hint of sentimentality. The mother's tender gesture appears completely natural, and is subtly underlined by the figures' corporeity, in particular the cherubic features of the baby boy, and the contrast with the simply sketched background figures. A la orilla del mar was exhibited in New York at Sorolla's inaugural exhibition at the Hispanic Society of America in 1909, and later travelled to Buffalo and Boston. The show was a huge success for Sorolla, who sold nearly 200 of the 356 canvases he had sent; it was attended by 159,831 people in New York alone. A la oilla del mar was purchased by the American collector and philanthropist Geneviève Garvan Brady for the large sum of $2,400. Among her numerous accolades, Brady was President of the National Girl Scouts and a Papal Duchess. The majority of her collection was sold in a five-day auction at her Manhasset, Long Island estate Inisfada in May 1937, but this painting hung at her residence in New York and remained with the family until the Chrsitie's sale in 1997. We are grateful to Blanca Pons-Sorolla for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.