Lot 10
  • 10

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 GBP
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Description

  • Playa de Valencia 
  • signed J Sorolla and dated 1910 (lower left)
  • oil on canvas
  • 48 by 56cm., 19 by 22in.

Provenance

Frederick Forrest Peabody (purchased at the 1911 Chicago exhibition. Peabody, 1859-1927, was a businessman and philanthropist from Santa Barbara who contributed generously to the rebuilding of the city after the 1925 earthquake)
Max Schweitzer Gallery, New York
Fernando Guereta, Buenos Aires
Acquired from the above in the 1970s

Exhibited

Chicago, The Art Institute; Saint Louis, The City Art Museum: Paintings by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, 1911, no. 145 (Chicago), no. 144 (Saint Louis)

Literature

Bernardino de Pantorba, La vida y obra de Joaquín Sorolla, Madrid, 1970, p. 195, no. 1728
Blanca Pons Sorolla, 'Paintings Sold and Portraits Painted in America, and Portraits Painted in France for Americans: Not Included in the Exhibition', in Sorolla and America, exh. cat., Meadows Museum, Dallas; The San Diego Museum of Art, 2013, p. 316, no. 215, illustrated

Condition

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd., of 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, London SW1Y 6BU:UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICEStructural ConditionThe canvas is unlined and the four turnover and tacking edges have been strengthened with a thin linen strip-lining. The canvas is securely attached to what certainly appears to be the artist's original, keyed wooden stretcher. This is providing an even and stable structural support.Paint surfaceThe paint surface has an even varnish layer.Inspection under ultra-violet light shows small intermittent retouchings along the upper and lower horizontal framing edges which appear to correspond to an earlier, reduced turnover edge. There are other minimal retouchings including spots and lines in the dark pigments of the hull of the boat in the lower left of the composition.SummaryThe painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition.Please note colours in the printed catalogue are somewhat more yellow and darker than in real life.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

Painted on El Cabañal beach, Valencia, at the end of the summer of 1910, the present work takes up a theme that preoccupied Sorolla like no other: fishermen landing the day's catch. The subject had first attracted Sorolla in the early 1890s when he painted his large scale canvas La Vuelta de la pesca in 1894, and exhibited it to great acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1895 (bought by the French State, and now in the Musée d'Orsay). The present work, painted in situ, evokes both the warmth of the Mediterranean sun and the busy atmosphere of the Valencian beach. 

Sorolla's work reveals a lively dialogue with the medium of photography. As a teenager Sorolla himself apprenticed in the photography studio of Antonio Garcia in Valencia, later marrying his son Clotilde. At the same time, he made friendships with numerous photographers, including Anna Christian (1876-1953/61?) from Minneapolis, whom he met through Archer M. Huntington in New York, and whose own photographs taken in Spain circa 1913-15 reveal Sorolla's influence (fig. 1).