The Skipping Rope

Joaquín Sorolla

Oil on canvas

Museo Sorolla

This radiant canvas captures Sorolla's younger daughter Elena mid-leap with a skipping rope, surrounded by other children near a sunlit fountain in the royal gardens of La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia. Sorolla froze the joyous moment with masterful Impressionist brushwork — the separation between Elena's feet and her shadow on the ground is a breathtaking detail that conveys pure airborne motion. Born in Valencia in 1863 and orphaned at age two, Joaquín Sorolla rose to become the most celebrated Spanish painter of his era, renowned for his dazzling command of sunlight and his ability to capture fleeting, luminous scenes of everyday life. Displaying this painting brings into your home not only a tender family moment but also the full brilliance of Spain's greatest master of light, whose work now graces the Museo Sorolla in Madrid.