White slave trade
Joaquín Sorolla, 1894
White slave trade is one of the works by Joaquín Sorolla that move away from his famous sunlit beaches toward social realism. Painted in 1894, it shows a group of young women, dressed as peasants in mantillas and headscarves, who seem to be dozing in the cramped space of a railway compartment. Only an older woman in black stays awake and watchful; it is generally understood that she is the procuress, the figure who guides the young women into their deception. The narrow setting suggests that escape from a predetermined fate is impossible. The reference to prostitution is veiled, with no explicit scenes, and it reveals the painter's compassion for his subjects. This restrained tone, together with a title that reads as an accusation, helps explain the response of critics: some praised the picture, while conservative Catholic moralists found it indecorous and regretted that Sorolla had stained his brush with such a subject. Today the painting is valued as evidence of the social concern of its time.
- Painter
- Joaquín Sorolla
- Date
- 1894
- Museum
- Sorolla Museum, Madrid
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