Hunting in the woods, Acteon stops on the banks of a stream when he sees Diana and her nymphs bathing nude on the opposite bank. Fascinated by their beauty, he observes them with a challenging and amu [+]
The frieze arrangement of the figures places this work in the painter`s classical phase, which began in 1594, the same year as the date on this painting. In Van Thiel`s view, it could be the picture w [+]
The painting entered the Museum holdings as an original work by Jan Both. In 1959 Blunt identifies it as the landscape listed in the 1701 inventory of the Palace of the Buen Retiro and maintains the a [+]
On a number of occasions, Peter Paul Rubens partially overpainted finished pictures. He did this to paintings by his own hand, such as Nymphs and Satyrs (P1666), which he retouched and enlarged twenty [+]
Philip II’s marriage to Elizabeth of Valois served to consolidate the desired peace between France and Spain, which was sealed in 1599 when both countries signed the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. [+]
Margaret of Austria married Philip III in 1599 after Philip II chose her from among the women of the Austria-Styria family. The marriage was planned to coincide with that of infanta Isabel Clara Eugen [+]
Margaret, who married Philip III in 1599, was the daughter of the Archduke of Bavaria. In this portrait by Pantoja de la Cruz -the most representative painter of the reign- she wears the so-called “Ri [+]
The Florentine Bartolomé Carducho arrived at the royal monastery of El Escorial in 1585, two years after El Greco had completed The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice for that building. Philip II was u [+]
The king is portrayed in armour, beside a tent; the image is not particularly representative of the sitter, whose tastes tended more towards regal pomp and religious piety. The composition follows ear [+]
As Homer tells it in The Iliad, Paris the shepherd, son of Priam, had to decide with of the three goddesses —Juno, Venus or Minerva— was the most beautiful, and give her the golden apple Mercury he ha [+]
This work is part of an apostolate from the Church of Almadrones, Guadalajara, which repeats the model of the Apostolates at Toledo Cathedral and the Museum-House of El Greco in that same city with ve [+]
A fire in El Pardo Palace on March 13, 1604, destroyed the portraits in the Hall of Kings. These portraits had been painted by the finest artists of the time, including Titian, Antonio Moro, Alonso S& [+]
It was Ballarin who discovered what is probably the Prado´s finest painting by Jacopo, and one of his most impressive late works, hanging in the Sala de Juntas of the Universidad de Barcelona, where i [+]
This work is part of an apostolate from the Church of Almadrones, Guadalajara, which repeats the model of the Apostolates at Toledo Cathedral and the Museum-House of El Greco in that same city with ve [+]
At the German Imperial court, into which Queen Margaret of Austria (1584-1611) was born, portraits of royalty were often included in religious scenes; these paintings were known in Spanish as portrait [+]
When Rubens visited Madrid on a diplomatic mission in 1628-29 he found this painting, which he himself had executed in 1609 for Antwerp city council, and which now belonged to Philip IV’s collection. [+]
In this work Cajés combines Caravaggesque tenebrism with Correggio’s soft, fleshy Mannerism. The resulting painting, with its gentle, delicate appearance, reveals the artist’s clear assimilatio [+]
This work is part of an apostolate from the Church of Almadrones, Guadalajara, which repeats the model of the Apostolates at Toledo Cathedral and the Museum-House of El Greco in that same city with ve [+]