LONDON, ENGLAND.-Joaquín Sorolla is without doubt the Spanish artist whose rise in the marketplace has been the most dramatic in recent years, and Sotheby's Spanish sale on Wednesday, November 16, 2005 will include one of the finest works by the artist ever to have come to the market. Painted on the beach at Valencia in the summer of 1909, and depicting a young girl putting up her hair before swimming, Antes del Baño combines all the elements that define Sorolla's most accomplished works. Widely acclaimed from the moment it was first exhibited in America in 1911, the painting has enjoyed an illustrious history ever since. Having hung first in the collection of the City Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and subsequently in an established private collection (where it has remained for the last 30 years), it now comes to auction with an estimate of at £3-4 million* (Euro 4.500.000-6.000.000). After so long out of the public eye, its emergence onto the market is set to cause great excitement within the international collecting community.

Adrian Biddell, Head of 19th-century European Paintings at Sotheby's, said: "This is Sorolla at his consummate best. A visual tour de force, Antes del baño ranks as one of the most sublime subjects that Sorolla ever committed to canvas. The virtuosity with which he renders the elements is superb, and the way he captures the disarming innocence of the young girl is breathtaking."

Having already established himself with major exhibitions in Europe between 1906 and 1908 (in Paris, Berlin and London), Sorolla went on to endear himself to the American public when he held his first one-man exhibition in the United States in 1909. The exhibition, which opened at the Hispanic Society in New York before travelling to Buffalo and Boston, was a roaring success: over 1,600 visitors beat a path to the Hispanic Society to see it there, and a further run of exhibition catalogues had to be produced to satisfy demand. It was in the immediate wake of this overwhelmingly positive reception that Sorolla painted Antes del baño. Buoyed with a new-found confidence and exuberance, he returned to Valencia in the summer of 1909 and set to work on this painting, the subject of which was very dear to his heart, and the qualities of which were to attract great critical acclaim when they were presented again to an American audience in 1911.

In 1911, Antes del baño formed part of Sorolla's second one-man show in the United States - this time at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the City Art Museum, St Louis. The exhibition was as successful as the last, but of all the works shown there, Antes del baño stood out - so much so that after the show closed the Museum purchased the work for its own collection. It remained there until 1946, when it was deaccessioned in line with the policy of the time. Although it has only rarely been seen in public since then, its ability to captivate those who look on it is as strong today as it ever was.

In addition to Antes del baño , the sale will also include a number of other works by Sorolla. Among them is Niña en al playa de Valencia (Girl on the Valencia Beach), which comes to sale direct from the family of the artist (est: £200,000-300,000/Euro €295,000-300,000). Other works by Sorolla include Barcas en la playa, Costa de Levante (Boats on the Beach, Levante), est: £70,000-90,000/ €104,000-133,000); Arreglando las redes (Mending the Nets), est: £220,000-280,000/ €325,000-413,000; Cabeza femenina: Estudio para el dos de Mayo (Woman's Head: Study for El Dos de Mayo), est: £20,000-£25,000/€29,500-36,900; Retrato de una jóven (Portrait of a Young Lady), est: £30,000-50,000/€44,300-74,000); and Figuras bajo los toldos, San Sebastián (In the Shade, San Sebastián), est: £30,000-50,000/€44,300-74,000).

The bravura of Sorolla's style and his love of Valencian life is perpetuated in the works of the Sorollistas, many of whom - including José Mongrell, Enrique Martínez Cubells and Cecilio Pla - are also represented in the sale.

While Valencia was very much the home of the sun-drenched, sparkling canvases of Sorolla and his school, Catalan art of the period had a life and character all of its own. Most of the work to come out of this region during the late 19th/early 20th century revolved around El Quatre Gats - a group of avant-garde artists and intellectuals centred around the café of the same name in Barcelona. Among the most celebrated artists involved in the group were Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa, Ramón Casas, Santiago Rusiñol, Isidoro Nonell, and Eliseo Meifrén - all of whom are represented in the sale.

A hotbed of ideas, El Quatre Gats was at the forefront of all that was new and exciting in Spanish art of the period. Picasso was a member, and the works of his early "blue" period clearly reflect the influence of his companion Isidoro Nonell, whose representations of society's outcasts define much of the output of the group.

Painted in 1906, Nonell's Gitana (Gypsy, illustrated right) is a compelling treatment of a subject to which Nonell returned frequently throughout his career, and one with which he felt a special empathy. Here, in this distinctive, strangely monumental, work he removes the gypsy from her folkloric context, and imbues her with extraordinary dignity. Although, towards the end of his short life (he died at 38), Nonell turned also to painting still lifes, it is his depictions of gypsies that have always been most coveted by collectors, and it is for these that he is most widely remembered. One of his most striking treatments of his favourite subject, Gitana is estimated at £300,000-500,000/€443,000-740,000.

Nonell's close contemporary Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa was equally fascinated with the idea of the gyspy myth and lore. Aside from his interest in what the gitana represented in terms of the "Spanish national spirit", though, Anglada was equally interested in the decorative potential inherent in the subject. In Gitana Con Niño (Gypsy and Child, est: £150,000-£200,000/€369,000-520,000), he depicts the gypsy and her child as a synthesis of brilliant colours and beautiful forms, lifting them out of reality and into a world of colour and rhythm that fits perfectly with the fiery, yet graceful, existence they lead.

Santiago Rusiñol, also a Catalan, is represented in the sale by two luminous works: Almendros En Flor (Almond Trees in Blossom, illustrated right) and Cipreses en Aranjuez (Cypresses in Aranjuez), both estimated at £150,000-200,000 / Euro 223,000-297,000. The charismatic leader of Catalan modernism, Rusiñol travelled widely and yet, in spite of this, it was in the gardens of Spain and in the landscapes of Mallorca that he found happiness and solace from the illness that plagued him for so much of his life. It was here too that he was able to explore the luminous effects and rich colours that are here so evident and that characterise his most accomplished works.

Andalucian art of the period is dominated by one name in particular - that of the region's great son and advocate Julio Romero de Torres. Romero de Torres' name brings to mind the verses of copla, or Andalucian folk song, of which so many of his paintings are a celebration. So potent were his renditions of local life, and so important was his status as the painterly voice of the people, that his images and name have since become a ubiquitous part of everyday Spanish life: the 100-peseta banknote used to carry his portrait, postage stamps reproduced the women of his paintings, and to this day a certain brand of olive oil - that great staple of Spanish life - uses a Romero de Torres woman as its label-image.