Valencia Trader

Coming Home

For the first time in more than eighty years, the Visions of Spain mural created by Valencian Painter Joaquin Sorolla will leave its usual place of display in the Hispanic Society of New York and travel to Valencia. It will take pride of place in the Bancaja Cultural Centre, where the fourteen individual pieces of the work of a total of some two hundred square metres will be reassembled. Currently, American and Valencian experts are busily restoring the piece in situ. In this way, one of the dying wishes of the painter will be fulfilled. Mr. Sorolla spent the last eight years of his life creating the piece in the hope that it could eventually be displayed in his home country, but despite the personal intervention of King Alfonso XIII has not been possible until now. Bancaja is spending some 2.5 million Euros on the project of which 1.5 has been set aside for the removal and transport of the pieces that necessitate an aircraft all for themselves. The exhibition is expected to arrive in Valencia in October, and will later travel to Seville, Madrid and Barcelona before returning to New York.