ANA CHICLANA

Having learnt the intricacies of her trade in the Paris art market, Ana Chiclana opened a gallery in Madrid around twenty years ago, with a view to growing the Spanish market in quality paintings and drawings by old masters.

She is focused on quality Spanish paintings. Her gallery has enriched museum collections in Spain and abroad Ana Chiclana has an office in Paris, giving her a point of contact to meet with those who are interested in Spanish painting.

Exhibition
Sorolla en negro, Bancaja Foundation. Valencia. May 5-September 10 2023.cat.33 p.126.

Bibliography
DE PANTORBA, Bernardino. La vida y la obra de Joaquin Sorolla, estudio biográfico y crítico. Madrid 1953 y Edition 1970, p.211. Núm. 2107.

• The work will be included in the artist’s catalog raisonné by Blanca Pons-Sorolla, to be published shortly as no. 2960.
• Certificate dated November 22, 2022 by Blanca Pons Sorolla Number BPS2960

This painting, dated 1920, is one of the artist’s last. At this time, he was at the peak of his career.

In the art of portraiture, he masterfully captures the psychology of the people he portrays. Here, he conveys to the viewer the strength and personality of his model. The rapid brushstrokes he uses to draw her face and clothes show a certain complicity between the painter and Maria del Pilar Bastida and Moret, painted on several occasions by Sorolla. She was the daughter of Mercedes Moret y Beruete, granddaughter of the painter Aureliano de Beruete, a contemporary artist and close friend of Sorolla.

This portrait was painted on the occasion of the birth of her first child, following her marriage two years earlier to the celebrated art historian Julio Cavestany de Anduaga. She is shown at home, surrounded by the furniture typical of the Madrid period. She is wearing the mantilla española, an emblematic asset for festive occasions in Spain. Joaquin Sorolla was to draw inspiration from the mantilla as an icon of femininity and elegance during this period of his career. His initial training at his father-in-law’s photography studio enabled him to familiarize himself with the nuances of black and include them in his compositions in a very bold way.

The portrait of the Marquise de Moret, a previously unseen painting exhibited for the first time to the public at the recent “Sorolla en negro” exhibition in Valencia, combines the quality of the artist’s mature touch with the freshness of the character’s psychology. It reveals an eclectic and daring Joaquin Sorolla.