Sorolla Staggers into the National

The British are not unknown for their moderate love of drinking alcoholic beverages, and so it is probably not surprising to discover that London’s National Gallery’s first acquisition of a painting by the Valencian master Sorolla, should be El borracho, Zarauz” (1910).

The painting was part of the exhibition ‘Sorolla: Spanish master of light’, which took place in 2019, and was the first major exhibition in the United Kingdom of the artist’s work in over one hundred years, the previous one having been held in 1908 when Sorolla was described as being “the greatest living painter in the world”.

Costing a mere £325,000, it is a large-scale sketch, painted when Sorolla visited the taverns of Zarauz, in the Basque Country, where he and his family spent the summer of 1910.

Sorolla never produced a ‘finished’ tavern scene of Zarauz; perhaps because he joined in with the ‘drunkards’, or perhaps because things got a bit rowdy and he took his leave.