Corner of the Garden, Alcazar, Sevilla Gm-00081101

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863–1923) In this view of the garden at Seville's Alcázar Palace, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida concentrated on the geometry of form and the clear, bright sunlight of southern Spain instead of the changing reflections of light. He had returned to Seville in 1910 to create a second series of paintings, four paintings of townscapes and garden scenes, following the series he had painted in 1908. While he retained the brilliance and atmosphere of his earlier paintings, he seems to have approached this second series in a less fanciful manner.

At the auction of the Thomas Fortune Ryan collection in 1933, J. Paul Getty zealously purchased ten paintings by Sorolla. He later wrote of that moment: "I was struck by the remarkable quality of Sorolla's paintings, being especially fascinated by his unique treatment of sunlight. . . . Although the purchase of these Impressionist works was a major digression from my usual fivefold collecting path, my opinion regarding their beauty, appeal and artistic merit remains the same as it was when I first saw the canvases."