Joaquín Sorolla

William Laparra, Paris (acquired from the artist at his 1906 Paris exhibition. A pupil of Jules Lefebvre and William Bouguereau, Laparra (1873-1920) was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1898, and became a member of La Sociétaire des Artistes Français in 1905, an organisation of which Sorolla was a 'membre correspondant', a shared affiliation that may have precipitated the two artists' acquaintance)
Eduardo Lucas Moreno, Madrid
Victoria de la Peña, Madrid
Arturo Linares
The Broadway Art Gallery, Gloucestershire
Purchased from the above by the present owner in the mid-1960s 

Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition Sorolla y Bastida, 1906, no. 260 (as Étude pour le tableau 'Triste héritage')
Broadway, Gloucestershire, The Broadway Art Gallery, Joaquín Sorolla, 1965, no. 24

The Connoisseur, May 1967, illustrated
Bernardino de Pantorba, La vida y obra de Joaquín Sorolla, Madrid, 1970, p. 181, no. 1376, catalogued
Joaquín Sorolla, 1863-1923, exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 2009, p. 269, fig. 180, illustrated

The following condition report has been provided by Hamish Dewar Ltd, 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, London SW1Y 6BU: UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas is unlined and is securely attached to a keyed wooden stretcher. The turnover and tacking edges have been strengthened with a thin linen strip-lining and there is also a loose unattached dust canvas on the reverse. The structural condition is sound and secure. Paint surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer and only minimal retouchings are visible under ultra-violet light. These are: 1) tiny flecks of inpainting in the white pigments of the water in the upper left of the composition, 2) retouchings around the framing edges and in the corners, 3) a thin vertical line approximately 2 cm in length, 4 cm in from the right vertical framing edge and a small spot and thin line in the lower right corner. There are other very small retouchings. Summary The painting is therefore in very good and stable condition and no further work is required.
"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."

Painted in 1899, the present work is a particularly fresh and vibrant preparatory oil study for Sorolla's masterpiece of the same year: Triste Herencia (Sad Inheritance; fig. 1), a painting that established his international reputation and is one of the artist's most iconic works.

Sad Inheritance concluded the artist's interest in overtly religious and social-realist themes that had occupied him during the 1890s, while the plein-air setting of young boys on El Cabanal beach announced a turning point both in the painter's technical development and his international fortunes.  

Awarded highest honours when exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris for its accomplished execution and poignant message (its working title had been Children of Pleasure), the outdoor setting of Sad Inheritance presaged the canvases of children frolicking on the seashore that would come to characterise his work of the next decade.  

In the present work Sorolla captures the spontaneity and drama of the moment. On the horizon a quartet of jaunty sails tack into the wind; the whites of the waves roll in in the middle distance; nearer to us boys gambol in an aquamarine sea, and on the beach in the foreground is silhouetted a single figure.  

It was clear that the scene Sorolla first encountered had affected him considerably, he recalled: '...at a distance I saw a few naked boys in the sea watched over by the vigorous figure of a friar on the beach. Apparently they were from the Hospital of San Juan de Dios, the sadest detritus of society: blind, mad, handicapped or leprous. I cannot tell you how strongly I was impressed to work on the spot...' (quoted in Joaquín Sorolla, 1863-1923, exh. cat., Madrid, 2009, p. 265).  

Indeed so influenced was he by the subject that he had difficulty finishing the large scale composition. And, even after dispatching it to Paris for the 1900 exhibition, he continued to worry, writing: 'I have painted it with my soul, but as it is very personal, I fear it will not be understood. This Sad Inheritance is my nightmare and my fear... I made it because I was struck by the power of the scene. It was so beautiful and so sad...' (letter to Pedro Gil Moreno de Mora, 15 February 1900, translated from Facundo Tomás et al, Epistolarios de Joaquín Sorolla, vol. II, Barcelona, 2008, p. 133). 

Of course Sorolla's worries were unfounded, and following its peerless critical success at the Paris exhibition, in 1901 the painting took the highest award at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid. Reassured, and marking a watershed moment in his career, Sorolla offered at least three of the preparatory oil sketches of this talismanic work as gifts to artist friends and acquaintances: in 1903 to John Singer Sargent (fig. 2), in 1906 to William Merit Chase and in the same year the present painting to Laparra, thus accounting for the post-dated dedication, inscription and signature.