The Prado Museum pays homage to the figure of the painter Joaquin Sorolla days before the beginning of the celebrations for its centenary with an exhibition through various portraits, including that of Manuel Bartolome Cossio,recently acquired by 80.000 euros and outside of Spain since the Civil War.

Also in the exhibition will be exhibited –on temporary loan– the portrait that the Valencian artist painted of Francisco Giner de los Ríos, acquired by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza for 25,000 euros and who also left the country with the war on his way to Paris .

“It is about the happy return to Spain of two important pieces, two portraits of fundamental personalities in the intellectual life of the last century.“, pointed out the director of the museum, Miguel Falomir, who thanked the owner family -sons of Manuel Jiménez Cossío- – “the understanding and interest” for this return to Spain of the paintings.

As Falomir has indicated, the idea of ​​the Prado is that Cossío’s painting is placed next to El Greco’s work ‘The Knight with his Hand on his Chest’, thus relating both figures. “Cossío was important for a thousand reasons, but also for that of an art historian: the museum is also made by historians and, without Cossío, El Greco would probably not be in the Prado“, he indicated.

Javier Barón, Head of Conservation of 19th-Century Painting at the Prado Museum, has stated that in this portrait of Cossío “not only is El Greco paid homage, but there is a legacy of Velázquez in the grays and blacks and even Goya, as It is seen on the edges. “There is a confluence of great masters to practice modern painting”, has added.

The Prado Museum has 23 works by Sorolla, 18 of which are portraits. Several of them are in the warehouses or with a deposit, so this sample serves to “restore, collect deposits, put in value or change the frames“, according to Barón, who nevertheless points to the return of these works to their place of origin when the exhibition ends.

“Sorolla had a naturalistic spirit in capturing the individual, and here there are institutionalists or lesser-known characters,” said the conservative. This tribute to Sorolla gathers in room 60 of the Villanueva building,dedicated to the Presentation of 19th Century Collections, a selection of the artist’s portraits kept in the Prado Museum.

The exhibition, which can be visited until June 18, 2023, is completed with the works that form part of the permanent collection in room 60 A and room 62 A, which brings together portraits of 19th-century artists, including four painted by Sorolla. One, that of Martín Rico, was acquired in 2022 and has been hanging in the room for a few months.

Among the portraits of institutionalists are writers (Rafael Altamira, Jacinto Felipe Picón y Pardiñas), doctors (Francisco Rodríguez de Sandoval, Joaquín Decref) and painters (Martín Rico himself, Aureliano de Beruete, Juan Espina, Antonio Gomar). In some paintings (Jacinto Felipe Picón y Pardiñas, The Painter Antonio Gomar, Doctor Joaquín Decref) Sorolla used a horizontal format.

Another prominent member of that intellectual and educational project – the Institución Libre de Enseñanza – was Aureliano de Beruete Jr., who in 1920 as director of the Museo del Prado created the first room dedicated to El Greco and whose portrait also hangs in the show.