The BBVA Collection is contributing to this exhibition with the loan of Messalina in the Arms of a Gladiator, a key work in Joaquín Sorolla’s oeuvre which he painted during his scholarship in Rome.

The exhibition recounts one of the most important milestones in Sorolla’s career: the scholarship he received from the Diputación de Valencia (Valencia Provincial Council), which gave him the opportunity to further his training in Italy. The time he spent in Rome, Florence, Naples and Assisi in the period from 1884 to 1889 was a critical experience that would prove crucial in his later trajectory and success.

Messalina in the Arms of a Gladiator is a superb example of Sorolla’s technical mastery, as well as of his taste for the female nude and fin-de-siècle aesthetics, very much to the fore in this period of the painter, which may be appreciated in the ornamental approach that underpins the work. The scene, set in the era of Claudius (10 BC – 54 AD), depicts Messalina, the wife of the Roman emperor, in the pose of a Bacchante next to a victorious gladiator, a mythological subject matter that provided Sorolla the perfect excuse to introduce the Roman setting expected from a scholarship holder working in Italy.