The BBVA Collection is contributing to Sorolla. Origins, an exhibition on show at the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia following its premiere at the Sorolla Museum in Madrid, with the loan of the painting Study of a Skull, 1883.

The exhibition, which kickstarts the programme of activities organised to commemorate the centennial of Sorolla’s death, tackles the artist’s beginnings, one of the lesser known and studied periods in his career. Through a series of paintings, watercolours, drawings and photographs, the show explores the years prior to his sojourn in Rome, where he went in 1885 to take up a scholarship and would remain until 1889.

Sorolla was barely twenty years old when he painted Study of a Skull, an extremely interesting example of his early work. It is an excellent and original sketch executed in oil paint on cardboard, revealing the artist’s interest both in the physiognomy of the skull and in the light effects that emphasise its features. Foreshadowing the loose, vibrant brushwork that would define his mature oeuvre, this work was probably inspired by the many vanitas he saw on his visits to the Prado museum.