The Museo del Prado is presenting the Portrait of Manuela Isidra Téllez-Girón, future Duchess of Abrantes, painted in 1797 by Augustín Esteve y Marqués and recently acquired for the Museum with funds from the Óscar Alzaga Villaamil donation. The portrait is considered Esteve’s finest work in this genre as well as one of the most striking depictions of children in 18th-century Spanish art. It will be displayed alongside other portraits of the 9th Duke of Osuna, the Duchess and their children painted by this Valencian artist.

The challenge of white, which brings together some of Esteve’s most important works from the Museo del Prado’s holdings and from various private collections, also includes the remarkable portraits that Francisco de Goya produced of the same members of the Osuna family. The exhibition remains on display until 1 October in Rooms 37 and 38 of the Villanueva Building.

On display for the first time in the Museum’s galleries is Portrait of Philip III by Velázquez, a work that has been donated by William B. Jordan to American Friends of the Prado Museum, which has ceded it to the Museum as a temporary deposit.

Velázquez’s painting is displayed in the Prado’s principal gallery alongside Philip II offering the Infante don Fernando to Victory by Titian, which can now be seen following its recent restoration undertaken with the support of Fundación Iberdrola España, a Benefactor Member of the Museum’s Restoration Programme. Titian’s painting hung in the same room (the Salón Nuevo in the Alcázar in Madrid) as The Expulsion of the Moriscos by Velázquez, a painting directly connected with the new portrait of Philip III, which was executed as a study for it.

For several weeks, the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (born in Quanzhou, China, 1957) will be transforming the Hall of Realms into his studio in order to create a group of works inspired by the memory of that historic space in a dialogue with the Old Masters. This artist’s residency will culminate with the creation of The Spirit of Painting, a monumental work measuring approximately 20 metres wide. In addition, the Museum’s Jerónimos Building will house a monographic exhibition of the artist’s other paintings created with ignited gunpowder.

Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, don Felipe and doña Letizia, headed a meeting of the National Committee for the celebration of the Bicentenary of the Museo Nacional del Prado. During the course of this meeting the special programme of activities devised to celebrate the principal moments in the Museum’s history was approved.

The events within this programme will aim to promote a reflection on the Museum’s past and present as well as looking ahead to its future through specific initiatives, among them the new architectural project for the Hall of Realms designed by Norman Foster, which will complete the so-called “Prado Campus”.