Asturias

1900

Grand Prix at the Paris Universal Exposition

“Sad Inheritance”, a huge canvas of crippled children bathing in the sea at Valencia under a monk’s supervision, brought Sorolla his greatest official recognition, the Grand Prix and a medal of honour, and his exhibit as a whole earned him nomination as a Knight of the Legion of Honour. After this picture he never returned to so overtly social a theme.

1901 · Distinción

Knight of the Legion of Honour

1901

A medal of honour in Madrid for “Sad Inheritance”

The painting won the medal of honour at the National Exhibition in Madrid. Two of its luminous preparatory oil sketches Sorolla gave as gifts to the American artists John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase.

1906

Galerie Georges Petit: nearly 500 works

A one-man show at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris — figures, landscapes, portraits, early works and recent sun-drenched beaches — eclipsed all his earlier successes. His productivity amazed critics, the show was a financial triumph, and it brought him the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour.

1907

Post: vocal of the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones científicas

1908

Meets Archer Huntington

Large exhibitions in Germany and London met with more restraint than the Paris show, but in England Sorolla met Archer Milton Huntington, who made him a member of the Hispanic Society of America in New York and invited him to exhibit there.