Tipos del Roncal

Painted in 1912 as part of the documentary fieldwork for the Hispanic Society of America mural commission, 'Tipos del Roncal' records figures from the Roncal Valley in Navarre — a remote Pyrenean valley with a distinctive pastoral economy and costume tradition that had survived relatively unchanged. The Roncalese were known for a specific style of dress and a long tradition of transhumance — seasonal movement of livestock between summer mountain pastures and winter lowlands — that gave them a character distinct from both Basque and Castilian neighbours. Sorolla's journey to such remote regions in search of authentic regional types demonstrated the seriousness of his ethnographic ambition for the Hispanic Society project. The Roncal Valley's isolation had preserved costume and custom that was already anomalous in early twentieth-century Spain, and Sorolla's documentation captures a traditional way of life at the moment of its final coherence before modern communications dissolved regional distinctiveness. These figures feed into the monumental Navarre panel of the Vision of Spain cycle.

Regional costume from the Pyrenean valleys presented Sorolla with complex textile and colour combinations very different from the white-dominated Mediterranean palette — heavier wools, darker dyes, different cuts and fastenings all required specific chromatic attention.