Joaquín Sorolla

Juan Ramón Jiménez (poet and Nobel Laureate) and his wife Zenobia (a gift from the artist)

Sorolla en Guipúzcoa, Kutxa Sala de Exposiciones, exh. cat., San Sebastián, 1992, p. 322, illustrated

The canvas has been relined. The following old restorations are visible under ultraviolet light: spots of retouching visible under UV light to two vertical repaired tears, one 20cm from the lower sky to the sea near the left edge, another c. 25cm left of centre through the upper sea and land, an area in the beach above and to the left of the signature, and scattered spots at the extreme upper and lower edges addressing frame rubbing. The overall appearance of the painting is good, and it is ready to hang. Held in a decorative gold-painted wood and plaster frame, with a white fabric inner accent.
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San Sebastián was a great source of inspiration for Joaquín Sorolla on several occasions. During the summer of 1917 and 1918, he painted many sketches and some paintings, showing a clear preference for the Paseo de Rompeolas, or promenade in front of Mount Ulía, a local landmark and very attractive landscape with the solidity of the mount and the mutability of the Cantabric sea under the everchanging light of the North of Spain. 

In this composition, the artist has avoided any figure and even the handrail, to create an almost abstract composition strongly influenced by Japanese prints.

The present work was a gift from the artist to the poet Juan Ramon Jiménez and his wife Zenobia. Jiménez had written very laudatory comments on Sorolla's works from 1903, and was portrayed twice by the artist, in 1903 and in 1916, commissioned in the latter case by Archer M. Huntington for the Portrait Gallery at the Hispanic Society.