Joaquín Sorolla
In 1907 Sorolla and his family spent the summer in La Granja de San Ildefonso, because Sorolla had been commissioned to paint the young King Alfonso XIII there, en plein air.
María, born in 1890, was 17 at the time. She had always been a delicate child and in 1906 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to spend the summers of 1906–1907 in El Pardo to breathe the pure mountain air. Her mother and the other children went with her and then they all went to La Granja.
Sorolla painted his daughter beside the pond, delighting in the play of the water and its reflections that he had always liked so much, and in his representation of the light filtered through the foliage, another of his favorite subjects. The charming figure of Maria shows no signs of her recent illness: she is portrayed here as an enchanting young girl of the belle époque.
She is shown with another girl with a hoop, who was the daughter of Leonard Williams, the art critic who published a catalog of Sorolla’s paintings in 1909.
We present today's painting thanks to the Museo Sorolla in Madrid.
P.S. I love Sorolla! I've written for you 8 things everyone should know about him. You can find it here. <3