JOAQUÍN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA
Spanish, 1863-1923

The Daughters of Rafael Errázuriz

Signed and dated J Sorolla Bastida/ 1897
Oil on canvas
89½ x 54¾ inches (227.5 x 139 cm)
Framed: 97 x 62 inches (246.5 x 157.5 cm)

This portrait of the three eldest daughters of Rafael Errázuriz Urmeneta and his wife Elvira Valdés Ortúzar de Errázuriz, of Valparaiso, Chile, was painted in Madrid based on photographs. Sorolla included a cameo self-portrait reflected in the mirror, which borrows from a similar motif in Las Meninas, the masterpiece by Velázquez in the Museo del Prado which was much admired by Sorolla. Also reflected in the mirror is the full-length portrait of the girls' mother which Sorolla had painted earlier the same year, and is now in the collection of the Museo Nacional Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile. The mirror and console depicted in this work are in the Museo Sorolla, Madrid.

Rafael Errázuriz was a wealthy Chilean politician, diplomat and Ambassador to the Holy See in Rome, with houses in Paris and Biarritz and a large estate and vineyard in Chile. He first met Sorolla in 1895 and, subsequent to the completion of the portraits of his wife and daughters, commissioned the artist to paint a portrait of the entire Errázuriz family, which Sorolla completed in 1905. That monumental work, measuring 89 x 131 inches (226 x 333 cm), was included in the traveling Sargent / Sorolla exhibition of 2006 and is in the Masaveu Collection, Madrid.

We are grateful to Blanca Pons-Sorolla for her assistance in cataloguing this work, which will be included in her forthcoming Joaquín Sorolla catalogue raisonné (BPS 1029).

Provenance
Errázuriz-Valdés Family, Valparaiso, Chile
Sale, Sotheby’s, London, November 26, 1985, lot 69, illustrated
Nancy and Ira Koger, Savannah, Georgia (acquired at the above sale)
Nancy and Ira Koger Trust, Florida (by descent, to the present)

Exhibited
Dallas, Texas, Meadows Museum, Spanish Light: Sorolla in American Collections, September 17, 2023 - January 7, 2024, pp. 38-9, no. 4, illustrated

Literature
Bernardino de Pantorba, La Vida y la Obra de Joaquín Sorolla: Estudio Bibliográfico y Crítico, Madrid, 2nd Edition, 1970, p. 202, no. 1897
Cf. Blanca Pons-Sorolla, Joaquín Sorolla: Vida y Obra, Madrid, 2001, p. 226, for illustration of the related 1905 work La Familia de Rafael Errázuriz
Benezit, Dictionary of Artists, Paris, 2006, p. 48

P.O.R.

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