JOAQUÍN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA (Valencia, 1863 - Cercedilla, Madrid, 1923).Lot comprising four drawings:-

JOAQUÍN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA (Valencia, 1863 - Cercedilla, Madrid, 1923).
Lot comprising four drawings:
- "Sketch in the café, gentleman reading", Paris, 1889.
- Sacks of Potatoes", Ávila, June 1912.
- Reading in the Salon", Paris, 1889.
- A sacar la barca". Valencia, summer 1903.
Works executed in composite pencil on fine, light beige, smooth, slightly satin-finished paper.
We are grateful to Blanca Pons Sorolla for cataloguing and researching these works.
Provenance; Sorolla's Testamentary, inventoried in the R Series, and included in the folder of drawings no. 43. Elena Sorolla García; Elena Lorente Sorolla; 1980, private collection.
They have a photocopy on the back of the certificate of authenticity of Don Francisco Pons-Sorolla y Arnau dated 30-x-1980. One of them has autograph inscriptions in pencil "Sacos/patatas" and "A", (middle right area).
Measurements: 10.5 x 13.3 cm; 10.7 x 15.2 cm; 9.5 x 14.5 cm; 13.3 x 16 cm.
"Sacks of potatoes", Ávila, June 1912, is one of the drawings he made on his journey through Castile, to make studies and sketches for his "Visions of Spain". A sacar la barca" ("To take the boat out"). Valencia, summer 1903 is one of the studies for "Sol de Tarde" which belongs to the collection of the Hispanic Society of America in New York.
As early as his school days, Joaquín Sorolla showed his fondness for drawing and painting, attending the drawing classes given by the sculptor Cayetano Capuz at the School of Artisans in the afternoons. Awarded a prize at the end of his preliminary studies at the Escuela Normal Superior, he entered the prestigious San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia in 1879. During his visits to Madrid in 1881 and 1882, he copied paintings by Velázquez, Ribera and El Greco in the Prado Museum. Two years later he was a great success at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts with a history painting, which prompted him to apply for a scholarship to study at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Having achieved his goal, Sorolla left for Rome in 1885, spending several months in Paris before arriving. In the French capital he was impressed by the paintings of the realists and the painters who worked outdoors. At the end of his years in Rome he returned to Valencia in 1889, settling in Madrid the following year. In 1892 Sorolla showed a new concern in his art, becoming interested in social problems by depicting the sad scene of "¡Otra Margarita!", awarded a first-class medal at the National, and the following year at the International in Chicago. This sensitivity would remain in his work until the end of the decade, in his performances on the Valencian coast. Gradually, however, the Valencian master would abandon the themes of unhappy children that we see in "Triste herencia", which had won prizes at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and at the National in Madrid a year later. Encouraged by the success of his resplendent images of the Mediterranean, and stimulated by his love of the light and life of its sunny beaches, he focused on these scenes in his more cheerful and pleasant works, with which he achieved international fame. In 1906 he held his first solo exhibition at the George Petit gallery in Paris, where he also demonstrated his skills as a portraitist. In 1908 the American Archer Milton Huntington, impressed by the artist's exhibition at the Grafton gallery in London, sought to acquire two of his works for his Hispanic Society. A year later he himself invited Sorolla to exhibit at his institution, resulting in an exhibition in 1909 that was a huge success. The relationship between Huntington and Sorolla led to the most important commission of the painter's life: the creation of the immense canvases intended to illustrate the regions of Spain on the walls of the Hispanic Society.