Antonio Muñoz Degrain

Antonio Muñoz Degrain, painted in 1917 and now at the Hispanic Society of America, depicts one of Sorolla's most important artistic mentors — the Valencian painter who had first taught him the fundamentals of painting and who remained a significant figure in his professional life. Muñoz Degrain was known for his grand historical paintings and orientalist subjects, a generation older than Sorolla and representative of the academic tradition that Sorolla had absorbed and then partly transcended. The 1917 portrait, made when both men were well advanced in their careers, carries the warmth and directness of a friendship that had survived decades. Sorolla's decision to include his teacher in the Hispanic Society's portrait series placed the older man in the company of Spain's intellectual and cultural leaders — a generous act of homage from a former student who had far surpassed his teacher's fame.

The portrait of an elderly fellow painter is handled with the particular attentiveness one artist brings to depicting another — Sorolla observing Muñoz Degrain's face with the same analytical eye his teacher once turned on him. The paint is applied with Sorolla's confident directness, the aged skin modelled in warm tones that acknowledge without overemphasising the signs of age.