2023-05-03 10:01:43
Summer of 1905. Sorolla, an already consolidated artist, is once again in his native and beloved Valencia. As usual, he is on the Malva-rosa beach, brush in hand and easel in front. From the sand, which warms his bare feet and only a few meters from where he stands, he contemplates a woman with a child in her arms and other little ones around her, while the supposed mother watches as one of them bathes in the Mediterranean. This print -imaginary- could well be true as a result of the image reflected on the canvas Valencia beachmade by the master of light and coming out next week for sale for a starting price of 55,000 euros.
It is just a few brushstrokes, almost blurs, that Sorolla It would surely be done as preparatory work for another of his canvases. “It could correspond to one of the numerous numbers of the catalog that, under the title ‘Color notes’, collected various small-format notes,” they say from the Ansorena auction house, which sells the small painting.
With his father-in-law’s cardboard
Among the singularities of this painting, with dimensions of 13 x21 centimetersemphasizes that it is an oil on photographic cardboard of Sorolla’s father-in-law, Antonio García, and that it was exhibited in some of the main cities that represented a milestone for Sorolla’s international career: Paris y London (1908), as well as at the Hispanic Society of America in New York in 1909.
“The black number on the back corresponds to that of the catalog of the New York exhibition of 1909. From the red number ‘334’ that appears below the stud on which the number ‘156’ appears in black, we know that this work was sent to the London exhibition of 1908. In the list of works sent by Sorolla to said exhibition, the number ‘334’ is titled Valencia beachwhich coincides with the title that appears in the exhibition of NY in 1909. But since more works were sent than were exhibited, we cannot be sure that it was exhibited”, they clarify from Ansorena.
Huntington bought the work for $100 in 1909.
Regarding the provenance, this work is currently in the hands of a private collector from Madrid that puts it up for sale, although its origin is from Archer Huntington, who acquired it for the journalist James Townsend, at the New York exhibition, in 1909, for 100 dollars. Sorolla’s exhibition in New York caused such a sensation that it attracted nearly 160,000 visitors between February 4 and March 8, 1909. “Huntington’s first special exhibition was an unprecedented success that brought international recognition and garnered glowing praise from both Sorolla and the Hispanic Society.From this show, Huntington had the opportunity to acquire some of the best works, including After bath (1908), Oxen pulling the boat (1903) e marine idyll (1908)”, they explain from the North American entity.
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