The Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia adds a large painting by Sorolla and opens a new room by Muñoz Degraín

The work 'I am the bread of life' by Joaquín Sorolla joins the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia. The oil on canvas measuring 415 x 532 cm is the largest religious-themed painting that remains of the Valencian master.

Signed and dated 1897, the painting features a boat in which a white sail takes up a prominent position in the composition. Standing with his back to a group of fishermen is Christ, dressed in a broad red cloak, with his arms raised and addressing a crowd of people listening to him on the shore. It was commissioned by the Chilean diplomat and wine entrepreneur Rafael Errázuriz to decorate his palatial home in Valparaíso (Chile).

It is the first work of the future Sorolla room in the Museum of Fine Arts, which will open in late 2023 and will include more than fifty works by the master, thus becoming the largest public collection of works by the painter after the Sorolla Museum in Madrid.

New room of the Valencian landscape artist Muñoz Degraín

25 works by Valencian master Muñoz Degraín (Valencia, 1840 - Malaga, 1924) make up the new room of the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia dedicated to the most relevant Valencian landscape painter in centuries.

On display are early landscapes representing the area around Valencia, dated from 1859, outstanding examples of his orientalist painting that brought him so much fame as an artist, with their vibrant chromaticism, and his well-known 'Amor de madre' (Mother's Love), from around 1912-1913, which is one of the artist's best-known and most iconic works.