Retrato de María Josefa Amalia de Sajonia Borbón-Parma (Dresde, Alemania, 1803-Aranjuez, Madrid, 1829), reina consorte de España y tercera esposa (1819) del rey Fernando VII. Peinada con el cabello recogido con peineta de carey y bucles a ambos lados de la frente, luce la banda y cruz de la orden de María Luisa. La factura del retrato y la madurez del semblante de la reina, notablemente más adulto
Double portraits of this type, which were common in the mid-nineteenth century, were generally painted when the son or daughter was presented in society. The mother, depicted as seated, represented an example to the daughter, normally shown standing. In this case the richly furnished room and the sitter`s clothes and jewels indicate the wealthy status of this well-known family of bankers.
A member of a dynasty of artists that began with his grandfather, the sculptor Pablo González Velázquez (1664-1727), Zacarías González Velázquez initially trained with his father, the painter Antonio González Velázquez (1723-94). In 1777, he joined the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, an institution to which he remained tied for the rest
Genaro Pérez Villaamil (El Ferrol, 1807-Madrid, 1854) can be considered the most significant and influential Spanish Romantic landscape painter and an artist who had an intense interest, characteristic of that period, in depictions of cities and their monuments.The small size of the tin plates on which theses scenes are painted allowed Villaamil to work from the motif, as he generally did w
The sleeping Joseph, his elbow propped on the table and the Infant Christ on his lap, receives the angel’s warning to flee and thus avoid the massacre of children ordered by King Herod (Matthew 2, 13). This is one of López’s most important religious compositions from his early career as a mature artist in Valencia.
Among the multiple sources of inspiration that Eugenio Lucas found in Goya’ works, bullfighting played a very substantial role in his painting career. As a bullfighting connoisseur and friend of bullfighters, he reflected his knowledge of that activity in a plethora of paintings of the widest variety, ambition and interest, always with the energetic and passionate approach that characterized his p
Madrid´s massive mountain range, the Sierra Madrileña, is depicted by Beruete from the outskirts of Madrid. This natural element was the painter´s favorite for his mountain landscapes. The work shows how this natural space was reclaimed as an axis for the regenerationalist politics that filled public life at the turn of the ninteenth to twentieth centuries. Understood as “the backbone of Sp
La joven dama, que aparenta alrededor de veinte años, está sentada junto a un velador, en el que se ven varios medallones y un libro, y sobre el que descansa el codo izquierdo. Luce un magnífico traje de raso gris y rosa, con manteleta y bocamangas de encaje. La blancura de su piel y la finura de su talle le infunden una fragilidad delicada y elegante. De rostro afilado y sereno, en el que resalta
This portrait of the wife of the banker Henry O’Shea reveals the British influence on Madrazo’s fully romantic period. Her social position is indicated by the quality of the fabrics, laces and jewels, and by the elegant arrangement of the hands. The books allude to the culture of this lady, who was a friend to the writer Washington Irving.
This portrait of María Guerrero, Sorolla’s neighbour and friend, is probably the finest and most expressive example of the eminent actress’s lifelong obsession with her own image. From childhood, she had herself portrayed by some of the most famous painters of her time, many of whom were friends of her father, the set designer Ramón Guerrero. María Guerrero grew up in a cultur
Although Federico de Madrazo began working in the genre of historical painting, his gifts as an artist promptly led him to portraiture, which he cultivated in all its forms throughout his lengthy career and in which he conspicuously excelled. This portrait of Sofía Vela is one of the best from the artist´s romantic period and is a superb example of the intimate portrait. It was exhibited at
This preparatory sketch for the ceiling of Charles III’s former bedroom at the Royal Palace in Madrid depicts the Institution of the Order of Charles III following the birth of the King’s first male grandchild. A personification of Monarchy holds the newborn Infante in its arms, and the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the Order, is depicted at the centre of the composition.
For Sorolla and his wife, the time spent in Italy formed part of the years at the beginning of their relationship when they confronted their first difficulties together. As late as 1915, nearly thirty years after this trip, Sorolla noted in a letter to his wife that he had ‘ordered a little frame for the Virgin you gave me when I left Spain to study in Rome. I think it looks good on it and will ma
Medieval architecture gained new appreciation in the Romantic era. At the outset of his career, Parcerisa produced a popular collection of lithographs of medieval buildings entitled Recollections and Sights of Spain, grouped by province. In the 1850s he also began a series of canvases entitled Spain´s Ancient Monuments, among them this view of the main façade of Spain’s most admired Gothic
Represent the order received by St Joseph to save the Christ child from the slaughter of the Innocent, and the release of the Liberation of Saint Peter, was imprisoned by Herod. The academic nudes reveals the training of the young painter, whose loose, impasted technique recalls that of his master Maella, though he employs a cooler palette. The forced perspective indicates that the finished pictur
According to Ovid, the marriage of Hippodamia to Pirithous sparked a mythical battle between their kinsmen, the lapiths and the centaurs. This theme appealed to artists as symbolising the battle between the passions and the intellect. Tegeo echoed the classicism of the Bolognese School in this painting, regarded as his finest neoclassical composition. It belonged to the Prince of Anglona, the seco
Lucas Velázquez drew his inspiration from different sources over the course of his career. Like Alenza, he drew on Siglo de Oro and Dutch painting for some of his landscapes, whose fantastic character allows us to relate them to works by Pérez Villaamil, although Velázquez’s execution is more frank and direct, with a clear tendency toward expressive sketchiness.His fertile ima
Gesalic was a king of the Visigoths from 507 to 511. The Chronological Series of the Kings of Spain was a museum project planned in 1847 by José de Madrazo to adorn four of the new rooms at the Real Museo de Pinturas (Royal Museum of Paintings), then under his direction. At the height of the confrontation between the supporters of Isabella II and the Carlists, who denied the sovereign’s rig