Sewing the Sail

Joaquín Sorolla painted Sewing the Sail in 1896 in El Cabanyal, the fishing quarter by the beach in his home city of Valencia. It shows fishermen's families at work on a sail, part of the everyday seaside life he returned to throughout his career. Sorolla was famous for capturing strong Mediterranean sunlight, and this huge canvas, about three metres wide, was one of his first big international successes, winning awards at exhibitions across Europe in the late 1890s. In 1905 it was shown at the Venice Biennale, and the city of Venice bought it for 11,000 lire for its new modern art gallery at Ca' Pesaro, where it still hangs. Sorolla was born in Valencia in 1863 and lost both parents, possibly to cholera, when he was two. He won the grand prize at the 1900 Paris World's Fair and in 1909 sold 195 of the 356 paintings in his exhibition at the Hispanic Society of America in New York.