The Little Sailing Boat

Painted in 1909 and held by the Sorolla Museum, 'The Little Sailing Boat' depicts a small vessel on the Mediterranean — one of the domestic-scale sailing craft used by the fishing community and wealthy leisure sailors alike along the Valencia coast. By 1909 Sorolla had completed his celebrated New York exhibition and was at the height of his international fame; the intimate canvas of a small sailing boat was a private counterpoint to the ambitions of that public success. Small sailing craft held a particular visual appeal: their white sails catching the wind created the same kind of light-in-fabric problem he explored with women's dresses and children's bathing clothes on the beach, but on a larger scale and in full open-ocean conditions. The boat's motion through the water produced wake patterns, bow waves, and the slight heel of a craft under sail — dynamic phenomena that gave Sorolla the same kind of kinetic energy problem that he relished in running children and incoming waves.

A small sailing boat in motion on open water combined several of Sorolla's most practised chromatic and formal interests: white sail in sunlight, coloured hull, the complex wake pattern in the boat's track, and the open Mediterranean sea as background. The slight heel of a sailing vessel added dynamic tension to what might otherwise be a static subject.