The Ministry of Culture has acquired two new works of Joaquin Sorolla to strengthen the public collection of the artist’s paintings, within the framework of the commemoration of the centenary of his death, according to the department directed by Ernest Urtasun.
The first of the works is ‘Garden (artist’s house)’which has involved an investment of 250,000 euros, and ‘Portrait of Dr. Francisco Rodríguez Sandoval’ acquired for 275,000 euros. Both will go to the Sorolla Museum, a state museum dependent on the Ministry of Culture.
‘Garden (artist’s house)’ was painted by the artist around 1920 and allows documenting the original state of the garden of his house in Madrid, one of the spaces of daily use of his family, as well as the original furniture.
The painting presents a partial view of the house where the artist’s family lived in Madrid – the current house-museum -, made from the first of the three gardens of the house, a place of great importance for the painter. This space in the building, whose design was carried out by Sorolla himself, offered the artist the possibility of having an outdoor painting studio and, in addition, it became a room used for meetings, gatherings or games.
Specifically, The oil painting shows the stairs that give access to the portico of the main façade, decorated with pots and a yellow rose bush, of which the artist’s son said that he had fallen ill upon Sorolla’s death and finally died shortly after his wife, Clotilde, did.
For his part, the ‘Portrait of Dr. Francisco Rodríguez Sandoval’ It also highlights the importance that the gardens of his house and outdoor painting had for Sorolla. The character portrayed was a doctor, member of the Free Teaching Institution, close to the painter’s family..
Their relationship began in 1906 with the treatment for tuberculosis of María, the artist’s eldest daughter, until he ended up becoming the family doctor, as can be seen from the correspondence preserved in the Sorolla Museum Archive. The complicity and close relationship between them is reflected in the portrait that the Ministry of Culture now acquires.
This mature work by the painter, made in the last years of his career, reflects Sorolla’s great mastery in modeling light. With the garden of his house as a setting, white is presented as the main color. The result is a painting in which the family environment and complicity with the sitter allow the painter to distance himself from the conventions of the genre.
This portrait joins other similar portraits kept by the Sorolla Museumbut focused especially on Clotilde, the painter’s wife, or unfinished and in the form of studies.
‘PLASENCE’
Furthermore, last August the Ministry of Culture acquired the work ‘Plasencia’ by Joaquín Sorolla for an amount of 300,000 euros. With it, the Sorolla Museum completes the collection of monumental views and landscapes that the museum has of other cities such as Ávila, Granada or Toledo.
These are essential pieces to understand the creative process of the artist, who used numerous studies to carry out the commission of ‘The Vision of Spain’ for the Hispanic Society of America. Specifically, this view of Plasencia provides greater knowledge about how Sorolla approached the panel ‘Extremadura. The market’.
These three works are added to those already acquired by the Ministry of Culture to expand and reinforce the collection dedicated to Joaquín Sorolla, on the occasion of the centenary celebration. In 2023 he acquired other paintings belonging to the painter’s first stage: ‘Street Troubadour. Visit of the Musician’ (1894), oil on canvas; ‘Head of Saint Anthony’ (1883), oil on canvas; and ‘Toma de Hábito’ (1888), wash and gouache on paper. Thus, the Ministry reinforced the effort to expand the collection already undertaken the previous year, when six works were purchased: ‘Playing the guitar’, ‘Girl’, ‘Singing girl’, ‘At the inn’, ‘The offerer’ and ‘ The slave and the dove. Naked’.