The artist’s wife and daughters splash in the sea at the town of Jávea on the Spanish coast. Sorolla employed vigorous strokes of paint to capture the motion of the sun-dappled surf as it swirls around the bathers. Paintings such as this one earned him international prominence. When it was shown at the Hispanic Society of America in New York in 1909, the New York Times praised the "water of many hues, lashing and foaming against the iridescent surface of wet rocks" and called Sorolla a great modern master.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): J Sorolla Bastida / 1905.
the artist, Madrid (1905–09; sold at Hispanic Society Exhibition to The Met)
Paris. Galerie Georges Petit. "Exposition Sorolla y Bastida," June 12–July 10, 1906, no. 42 (as "Le bain. Javer," possibly this picture).
Berlin. Galerie Schulte. February 3–March 1, 1907, no catalogue? [see Santa-Ana Álvarez-Ossorio and Barrabés 1995].
Düsseldorf. Galerie Schulte. April 1907, no catalogue? [see Santa-Ana Álvarez-Ossorio and Barrabés 1995].
Cologne. Galerie Schulte. May 1907, no catalogue? [see Santa-Ana Álvarez-Ossorio and Barrabés 1995].
London. Grafton Galleries. "Exhibition of Paintings by Señor Sorolla y Bastida," May–July 1908, no. 122 (as "Sea-Nymphs").
New York. Hispanic Society of America. "Catalogue of Paintings by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida," February 8–March 8, 1909, no. 98 (as "El baño, Jávea").
Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. "Catalogue of Paintings by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida," March 20–April 10, 1909, no. 66 [see Santa- Ana Álvarez-Ossorio and Barrabés 1995].
Copley Hall, Copley Society of Boston. "Catalogue of Paintings by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida," April 20–May 11, 1909, no. ? [see Santa-Ana Álvarez-Ossorio and Barrabés 1995].
Winter Park, Fla. Morse Gallery of Art. "Spanish Art of Six Centuries," January 12–31, 1946, no. 17.
Palm Beach. Society of the Four Arts. "Spanish Painting," January 11–February 6, 1952, no. 41.
Palm Beach. Society of the Four Arts. "Spanish Painting, XVII–XX Centuries," January 4–27, 1963, no catalogue?
Phoenix Art Museum. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art Loan Collection: 'The River and the Sea'," February 15, 1967–February 15, 1968, no. 17.
St. Petersburg, Fla. Museum of Fine Arts. "Spanish 19th Century Painters," January 15–February 18, 1973, no catalogue?
Jacksonville, Fla. Cummer Gallery of Art. "Spanish 19th Century Painters," March 6–April 8, 1973, no catalogue?
Liège. Salle Saint Georges. "Sorolla/Solana," October 15–December 1, 1985, no. 17 (as "Niñas tomando el baño [Fillettes au bain]").
Fundación Cultural MAPFRE Vida. "Joquín Sorolla (1863–1923)," November 23, 1995–January 28, 1996, unnumbered cat. (p. 92).
Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. "Sorolla y Zuloaga: Dos Visiones para un Cambio de Siglo," December 19, 1997–February 22, 1998, no. 34.
Madrid. Fundación Cultural MAPFRE Vida. "Sorolla, Zuloaga: Dos Visiones para un Cambio de Siglo," April 8–June 28, 1998, no. 22.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rodin at The Met," September 16, 2017–February 4, 2018, no catalogue.
THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.
Exhibition of Paintings by Señor Sorolla y Bastida. Exh. cat., Grafton Galleries. London, 1908, pp. 39, 55, no. 122, ill.
B[ryson]. B[urroughs]. "Principal Accessions." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (April 1909), pp. 69–70.
"Spain's Great Painter: Exhibition of Pictures by Sorolla y Bastida." The Evening Post (February 5, 1909) [reprinted in "Eight Essays on Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida," vol. 2, New York, 1909, p. 172].
Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. Letters to Pedro Gil Moreno de Mora. February 11 and 19, 1909 [published in Ref. Tomás 2007, pp. 272–73, nos. 316–17], relates that this painting has been sold to the MMA along with two others.
"Sorolla Forgery on Sale Here: Painter Himself Denounces It." Chicago Examiner (March 22, 1911), p. 4, discusses a forgery made after this picture but dated 1904 that Sorolla, himself, denounced.
"Sorolla Calls Picture Fake: Spanish Artist Detects Copy of One of His Own Works." Chicago Daily Tribune (March 22, 1911), p. 3, calls it "The Little Bathing Girls"; mistakenly states that the picture was then owned by Archer Huntington; discusses the forgery made after it that Sorolla disowned in Chicago.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 306, ill., notes that Jávea, a small village in the province of Alicante, Spain, is the site of many of Sorolla's pictures of bathers.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 91.
Bernardino de Pantorba. La vida y la obra de Joaquín Sorolla: Estudio biografico y critico. 2nd, enlarged ed. Madrid, 1970, p. 169 no. 1075, ill. p. 64, as "Niñas tomando el baño (Jávea)" (Girls Taking the Bath [Jávea]).
Florencio de Santa-Ana Álvarez-Ossorio and Noeli Isábal Barrabés inJoaquín Sorolla (1863–1923). Exh. cat., Fundación Cultural MAPFRE Vida. Madrid, 1995, pp. 92–93, ill. (color), note that it was executed in the summer of 1905; comment that the figure of the nude girl is unusual in Sorolla's works.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 169, ill.
Facundo Tomás et al., ed. Epistolarios de Joaquín Sorolla. Vol. 1, Correspondencia con Pedro Gil Moreno de Mora. Barcelona, 2007, p. 208 n. 322, pp. 272–73, nos. 200, 316–17.
José Luis Díez and Javier Barón inJoaquín Sorolla, 1863–1923. Ed. José Luis Díez and Javier Barón. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2009, pp. 34, 72, 132 n. 123, p. 136 n. 403, fig. 38 (color), call "Bathing in Jávea" of 1905 (formerly José Gómez Mena collection, Havana) a pendant to this picture.
José Luis Díez inJoaquín Sorolla, 1863–1923. Ed. José Luis Díez and Javier Barón. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2009, p. 354.
Marcus B. Burke inJoaquín Sorolla, 1863–1923. Ed. José Luis Díez and Javier Barón. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2009, pp. 388, 390 n. 3.
Javier Barón inJoaquín Sorolla, 1863–1923. Ed. José Luis Díez and Javier Barón. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2009, p. 463.
Blanca Pons-Sorolla and Víctor Lorente Sorolla, ed. Epistolarios de Joaquín Sorolla. Vol. 3, Correspondencia con Clotilde García del Castillo (1891–1911). Rubí (Barcelona), 2009, p. 105 n. 300, recount the dream that Sorolla's wife had a year prior to this work of his making such a painting.
Víctor Lorente Sorolla inClotilde de Sorolla. Exh. cat., Museo Sorolla. Madrid, 2012, p. 28 n. 23, ill. p. 27 (color), as "Niñas tomando el baño, Jávea"; states that the models were the artist's wife and daughters and that both The Met's picture and "El baño. Rocas de Jávea" (whereabouts unknown) illustrate a dream the artist's wife had.
Blanca Pons-Sorolla inSorolla and America. Ed. Blanca Pons-Sorolla and Mark A. Roglán. Exh. cat., Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University. Dallas, 2013, pp. 21, 24, 28 n. 15, pp. 42, 154, 294, 303 no. 36, ill. p. 303 (color), fig. 6 (color) [Spanish ed., "Sorolla y Estados Unidos," Madrid, 2014, pp. 21, 26, 31 n. 15, pp. 47, 181, 344, 350, ill. p. 350 (color), fig. 10 (color)], discusses the forgery made after this picture that was sold in 1911; mistakenly states that Archer Huntington donated it to The Met.
Mitchell A. Codding inSorolla and America. Ed. Blanca Pons-Sorolla and Mark A. Roglán. Exh. cat., Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University. Dallas, 2013, p. 60 [Spanish ed., "Sorolla y Estados Unidos," Madrid, 2014, p. 68].
Blanca Pons-Sorolla inSorolla in America: Friends and Patrons. Ed. José Luis Colomer et al. Dallas, 2015, p. 54, notes its companion piece, “The Bath, Jávea” (location unknown), was purchased by Huntington for his friend Walter Wallace of San Francisco.
María Luisa Menéndez Robles inJoaquín Sorolla: Técnica artística. Madrid, 2015, p. 33.
Blanca Pons-Sorolla inSorolla and the Paris Years. Ed. Blanca Pons-Sorolla and María López Fernández. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich. New York, 2016, p. 34, fig. 11 (color), states that it was among the pictures exhibited at Galerie Georges Petit.
Sorolla: Catalogue Raisonné, Painting Collection of the Museo Sorolla. Ed. Blanca Pons-Sorolla. Madrid, 2019, pp. 274, 501, states "The Bath, Jévea" (1905; Museo Sorolla) is a study for it and "The Bath, Rocks of Jávea" (1905; private collection); describes it as one of the major works completed at Jávea, where the Sorolla family stayed from July 10 until late September, 1905.
Jávea, a small village on the Spanish coast, in the province of Alicante, lies between two promontories. Many of Sorolla's pictures of bathers were painted there.
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