The Actress María Guerrero as 'La Dama Boba'

The year painted in the upper corner, 1906, is when Sorolla finished with this canvas rather than when he began it. He first painted María Guerrero in 1897, in a smaller and wider picture, with the actress sitting down. Nine years later he added strips of canvas to square the shape up, brought her to her feet, sank the background into shadow, lightened her expression, and set a second figure far back in the room, her husband and stage partner Fernando Díaz de Mendoza. Guerrero was the leading actress of the Spanish stage and ran her own company. The dress is a costume, and the title names the part she is playing, Finea in Lope de Vega's comedy La dama boba, written around 1613. She was a friend and a neighbour, and she lent Sorolla clothes from her theatre wardrobe for other portraits. Her son sold the picture in 1933 to the Museo de Arte Moderno, and it reached the Prado in 1971.