Sorolla Museum

The Museo Sorolla occupies the house and studio that Valencia-born painter Joaquin Sorolla built for his family in the quiet Chamberi district north of central Madrid and lived in until his death in 1923. His widow Clotilde Garcia bequeathed the property to the Spanish state in 1925, and the museum opened in 1932 as one of the country's first artist house-museums. Rooms are kept close to their original state: the large top-lit studio with easels and unfinished canvases, the dining room lined with Valencian tilework, and the Andalusian-inspired garden Sorolla designed himself with fountains and azulejos. The collection holds more than 1,200 of his works, dominated by the luminous beach and family scenes that made his name in the international light-painting canon. Rooms are small and the atmosphere domestic; an hour is enough to move from garden through living quarters into the studio.