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This work shows a taste for the monumental and straightforward. During those years, Spanish court painters of quite varied training underwent a process in which their compositions grew clearer, more solemn and serene. The balance of masses and the presence of the figures recall classicist approaches, as the artist has reduced accessories and the spatial sense to a minimum. Even the opening to Heav
Paolo Veronese`s Penitent Magdalene, 1583, reflects the change occurring in Venetian religious painting around 1580. On one hand, the new order of priorities imposed by the Council of Trent (1545-63) emphasised subjects such as the Eucharist, penitence and the martyrdom of the saints. On the other, the Inquisition began to zealously protect decorum in the treatment of sacred subjects. Veronese had
San Juan Bautista aparece representado con el cordero de la pasión junto al cual descansa una cruz con la inscripción Ecce Agnus Dei en la filacteria. La obra, firmada y fechada en 1681, tiene la finalidad de expresar por medio de símbolos el fin último del nacimiento y la muerte de Cristo, un asunto relativamente frecuente en la pintura española del siglo XVII, íntimamente relacionado con las rep
El juego representado en este cartón para tapiz corresponde a la descripción del juego de bochas en el Diccionario de Autoridades de 1726: “Juego que se juega entre dos o más personas con unas bolas medianas, y otra más pequeña, la cual se echa rodando à cierta distancia, y tirando con las otras hacia donde está la pequeña, el que más se arrima con la suya a ella, es el que gana la raya. Es voz to
A portrait of Cardinal Carlos de Borja Cetellas Ponce de León (1664-1733), son of the IX Duke of Gandia. He was one of the most influential personages in Spain during the first half of the eighteenth century and Felipe V´s Main Chaplain. He wears the garb of a Cardinal, with his left hand on the biretta that rests on a red velvet pillow on a table at the right of the composition. On t
This portrait of a young Charles III is typical of Ranc´s portraits of children. It shows the future monarch as an Infante, years before his departure for Parma and Naples to occupy thrones his mother had assiduously arranged for him. Four other examples of this portrait are found in the Prado, Palace of El Pardo, Royal Palace of Madrid and the Royal Palace of La Granja. They demonstrate the syste
Son of Philip V and Isabel Farnese, Louis Antonio of Bourbon was born July 25, 1727, became archbishop of Toledo on September 9, 1735, and became cardinal on December 9 of that year. In 1739, he also assumed the archbishopric of Seville. Regardless of his high ecclesiastical rank, he lacked the interest or capacity to carry out such activities, and led a life of hunting and pleasure unsuitable to
In his interpretation of the traditional subject of the Holy Family Houasse evokes the French tradition of the second half of the 17th century century, imbuing it with the currently fashionable Italianate air. Within the overall darkness a powerful light source highlights the figures of the Virgin and Child and the infant Saint John the Baptist. The less prominent Saint Joseph watches them from th
This painting presents an event mentioned in the book of Genesis (18, 1. 19). Giambattista Tiepolo had depicted this subject earlier in a painting from the series he painted for the palace of the Archbishop of Udine in 1726. Here, however, it is presented in a more modern manner, with a contained equilibrium among all parts of the composition and a harmonious coexistence of neoclassical values wit
The daughter of Philip V and Isabella Farnese, the sitter (1726-1746) married Louis Ferdinand, Dauphin of France. This portrait formed a pair with that of his brother Louis, a future cardinal. The format, which imitates an oval stone frame, derives from the Renaissance classicism disseminated via 16th-century Flemish prints, functioning as a symbol of authority.
This drawing is a more complete variant on the central part of a drawing by Creti at the Albertina in Vienna. The composition is quite similar to a canvas with Adoration of the Shepherds from around 1740, which has a similar placement of the Virgin and Child, the group of shepherds on the right, and the woman seen from the back, climbing the stairs with a basket on her head. However, the left part
The son of painter Giovanni Maria Galli da Bibiena and brother of Ferdinando Galli da Bibiena, Francesco was raised in a family of artists and took an early interest in architecture and set design. He worked in various Italian cities before being appointed architect to the court of Mantua and moving to Vienna, where he took charge of the construction of the new opera theatre. Later trips took him
Preparatory drawing for Capricho 42. The abuse of ordinary people by those in power and the ignorance that perpetuates this system of exploitation are recurring themes in the Caprichos. Here, asses representing the nobility literally ride the backs of the laboring poor. Contemporary manuscripts echo these ideas, including one in the Biblioteca Nacional de España: "The poor and useful classe
Originally in the collection of the 7th Marquis del Carpio, Spanish Ambassador in Rome (1676-82) and Viceroy of Naples (1682-87), this sculpture consists of a nude, Greco-Roman torso with some surviving folds of drapery, completed in the Baroque style by a Roman sculptor in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. It depicts Venus’s birth as she rises from the waves, supported by a dolphin and
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