Publics of the First Public Museums (18th and 19th Centuries). Visual Sources

The Conference entitled Publics of the First Public Museums (18^th and 19th Centuries). Visual Sources is an integral part of the research project Visibility Reclaimed. Experiencing Rome’s First Public Museums (1733-1870). An Analysis of Public Audiences in a Transnational Perspective (FNS 100016_212922) directed by Carla Mazzarelli. Marking the third of three encounters (I. Institutional Sources; II. Literary Discourses), this workshop delves into the examination of visual sources, vital to understanding the forms of representation of early museums and their publics. We intend to investigate a vast range of visual sources, from views of internal and external spaces to architectural and display projects, from caricatures to illustrations published in catalogues, guidebooks, voyages pittoresques up to the (self)representation of publics, museum staff (directors, custodians, ciceroni) and artists within the museum.

Visual sources have long represented a privileged source for investigating the origins of the first public museums and the impact on their publics. However, in the light of recent studies aimed at deepening the material history of the museum and the encounter of the public with the institutions, these sources deserve a closer scrutiny in both methodological and critical terms. As museums sought to define and engage their publics, visual sources often became both a mirror and a mould; they reflect and shape institutional and societal perceptions, contributing to build up the idea of museum but also to give a depiction of practices of access to public and private collections in Europe and in the World. The Museo Nacional del Prado welcomes this initiative as it has been involved since its foundation in 1819 in the process that the Conference analyzes. The well known paintings that represent the spaces of Museo Nacional del Prado, since its opening, such as those of Fernando Brambilla, are an important starting and comparison point for the theme at the center of the Conference discussion.  

On the other hand, paintings depicting ‘quadrerie’ have been a codified genre at least since the 17th Century. Such artworks have also been read as sources for the study of the evolution of the display during the Early Modern Age, but they also represent reference models for artists on how to represent the interiors of museum spaces, their publics and staff.

David García Cueto is Head of the Italian and French Baroque Painting Collection at the Museo Nacional del Prado. He holds a Ph.D in Art History from the University of Granada with European mention in 2005. He completed postdoctoral research stays at leading international centers, including the Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología of Rome, the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He began his teaching career at the University of Granada in 2007, an institution where he served as full professor of Art History between 2012 and 2020. He is also a visiting professor at the universities of Ottawa, Bologna, Geneva and Rome, as well as at the Collège de France. His studies have focused, among other topics, on artistic and cultural relations between Spain and Italy in the 17th century, on art and diplomacy in the Modern Age and on Spanish art in the Golden Age, publishing numerous studies in this regard, including the books Claudio Coello, pintor (1642-1693) (2016) or Seicento bolognese y Siglo de Oro español. El arte, la época, los protagonistas (2006). Principal investigator of two national R&D projects: La copia pictórica en la Monarquía Hispánica, siglos XVI-XVIII (2015-2018) and El despliegue artístico en la Monarquía Hispánica, siglos XVI-XVIII (2019-2020). He was also the curator of the exhibition Guido Reni, held at the Museo del Prado and winner of the award for the best national exhibition in 2023.