Capturing the moment

Painted during the summer of 1906 in Biarritz where the family spent many summers Sorolla shows his daughter Maria preparing to take a snapshot. The camera is probably the Kodak "Folding Pocket Nº 0", the smallest portable model there was at the time, which went on sale as a luxury item in 1902. The Sorolla family captured many family moments with this camera and here the artist immortalizes his daughter Maria with the camera as if in a dialectic exchange between photography and painting. The title of the painting, Capturing the moment, reflects both the photographic quality and the rapid, almost sketch-like technique Sorolla uses in this painting, and which along with his subtle palette suggests the influence of the French Impressionists. Sorolla had come into contact with these artists in Paris, where his first solo exhibition had just been very well received by the critics.