1894

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Location📍 

Room 061A

Produced in 1894, this emblematic work is a masterpiece of Spanish social realism, earning Sorolla a First Medal at the 1895 National Exhibition. The subject and title were inspired by the tragic concluding scene of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s novel Flor de mayo, reflecting the harsh reality of seafaring life. Set in the confined interior hold of a fishing boat, the composition depicts a young fisherman lying on the floor after a maritime accident. While two older sailors—one in a traditional barretina—tenderly treat his wound, the scene transcends mere reportage to evoke the dramatic solemnity of a secular pietà. Sorolla imbues the figures with a noble gravity, a quality critics later compared to the influence of Velázquez. The painting’s power lies in its daring spatial design and mastery of luminosity. Light streams through the boat’s hatch, softly illuminating the hold and culminating in the silvery reflections of freshly caught fish piled in the background. A modern, sharp-angled framing shifts the perspective, revealing the stairs down which the boy was carried and heightening the spatial tension of the enclosed setting. Although adhering to the formal rigors of strict naturalism with firm, descriptive drawing, the powerful presence of the figures, who dominate the composition relative to the canvas size, creates a profound sense of solemnity that anticipates the innovative painterly language of Sorolla's later oeuvre.

1909 (Signed in 1910)

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Location📍 

Room 060A

Between late June and late September 1909, during a fruitful three-month stay in Valencia, Joaquín Sorolla produced several masterpieces, including The Horse’s Bath. While this work is signed "1910," it must have been painted in the summer of 1909, as it was already reproduced in a book printed in December of that year. Reflecting his Mediterranean fascination, Sorolla drew on the motif of nude children favored by Mariano Fortuny and Sargent, but distinguished his work by removing the horizon and bringing the sea’s edge into the immediate foreground, turning the water's movement into a purely pictorial subject. Despite the canvas's size, he painted it from life without previous studies, achieving a perfect balance between static postures and dynamism. The composition strategically guides the viewer’s gaze: the diagonal position of the boy in the foreground draws us into the canvas, while his turned face carries our gaze back to the second boy and finally to the abandoned posture of the third, who lies parallel to the upper edge. There is a gradual increase in relaxation and chromatic intensity according to the distance from the viewer; the white flesh of the nearest boy transitions through the tanned shades of the second to the reddish-bronze of the soaked boy in the background. Sorolla meticulously rendered the sun’s intensity through highlights that evolve from matte white impastos on the driest boy to very luminous reflections on the fully wet skin of the third. The artist captured the movement of the water using very broad brushstrokes with turquoise, blue, violet, and mauve tones, also reflecting the small hollow created by the undertow near the central figure's feet. Of special interest is the double silhouette cast by the figures, which the artist observed under Valencia’s intense midday sun: their lower silhouettes correspond to their reflections on the water, while those directly below their bodies are their shadows, colored in a shade of violet.

1917

Henri Matisse

Location📍 

Level 2, Room 11

This portrait of three sisters is one of Henri Matisse's masterworks, featuring three young brunettes seated before a bistre background. While two of the young women look out at the viewer, the third is absorbed in her reading, showcasing their different attitudes. The painter successfully creates a perfect balance between seemingly incompatible elements, such as discordant colors and the impression of juxtaposed levels of perspective. The work was inspired by multiple sources, including Manet's paintings, Japanese engraving, and the painting Les dames de Gand (The Three Gand Ladies) conserved at the Louvre, which was attributed to Jacques-Louis David at the time. Matisse's interest in this subject was expressed many times, leading to several versions; notably, three other paintings of the three sisters are conserved at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. This particular version in the Musée de l'Orangerie was one of the few works Paul Guillaume purchased at a public sale. It is highly likely he acquired it in memory of the other paintings of the sisters he had previously ceded to Doctor Barnes while helping build his collection.

c 1923

Chaïm Soutine

Location📍 

Level 2, Room 15

Le Village is considered the most radical and unusual of Chaim Soutine's landscapes. While the subject—comprising houses, trees, and the sky—appears classical, the treatment reveals a tormented character and an affirmation of great modernity. Soutine dramatically distorted and intertwined every element, effectively eliminating any traditional sense of perspective or balance. This "mental landscape" eclipses the strict observation of nature to make way for a profound expression of feeling. Despite its distorted appearance, the painting is modeled after a real location: La Basse Gaude, a village near Cagnes. This work belongs to a series of nine paintings produced in 1923-1924, featuring houses and a mill clinging to a rocky hillside at varying heights. Soutine created this piece during a period of emotional contradiction; in late 1923, he wrote to the Parisian gallery owner Zborowski, "I would like to leave Cagnes. This landscape that I can no longer stand..." This anguished and subjective reinterpretation of his environment firmly places Soutine within the Expressionist tradition that was particularly marked before and after the First World War.

1922–1923

Chaïm Soutine

Location📍 

Level 2, Room 9

This portrait of a pastry cook marked a decisive moment in Chaïm Soutine’s career. In 1923, after Paul Guillaume acquired a version of the subject—now in the Barnes Foundation Collection—it was immediately hailed by Albert Barnes as "a peach!", transforming Soutine overnight into a recognized hero of Montparnasse. Soutine produced six versions of this same subject that are known today. Likely inspired by Jean Fouquet’s Portrait of Charles VII in the Louvre, the model’s pose—featuring an elongated face, fragile neck, and distorted features—exudes a strong expressive power. The flat, vivid red of the cloth creates a striking contrast against the white jacket rendered with touches of grey and green. Paul Guillaume purchased this exceptionally accomplished version in the early 1930s as a tribute to the first "Pastry Cook" that he had liked so much. This painting is now held in the Musée de l’Orangerie, preserving the legacy of the work that so significantly changed Soutine’s fortunes.

1914–1926

Claude Monet

Location📍 

Ground floor, Room 3, Water Lilies 2

A monumental set of eight compositions designed as a unique environment in two elliptical rooms. Gifted to the French State as a symbol of peace after the 1918 Armistice, it is described as the "Sistine Chapel of Impressionism.”