After Bathing, Valencia

Many versions of After the bathe or Coming out of the water can be found in Sorolla’s work. This relatively unimportant theme is one the painter was at ease with and which finds its high point in The pink robe which for a time was also called After the bathe.

These scenes reflect real-life themes from the Valencia of the time. The custom in Valencia in the late 19th and early 20th century was for the children of the working classes to bathe naked in the sea. When the girls were four or five years old they started to use a bathing gown while the boys went on bathing in the nude until adolescence. This led to the paintings of girls changing out of their pink or white bathing gowns as shown here, or children playing at the water’s edge as can be seen in so many other paintings by the artist.