Sad Inheritance!

Joaquín Sorolla's Sad Inheritance! (1899) is one of the most powerful and memorable paintings I've ever seen. It shows a priest helping boys crippled by poliomyelitis into the sea for bathing. A life on crutches was the prospect for hundreds of thousands of unfortunate children prior to the introduction of the polio vaccine in the 1950s. This painting is on display in a new exhibition in Madrid (CLICK).