Upon the death of Charles III, Goya was asked to paint portraits of the new monarchs, Charles Bourbon IV and his wife, María Luisa of Parma. As a recently named Royal Painter, the artist was responsible for supplying portraits of the Royal Family; aided by several painters in his workshop, he was required to fulfill the commissions of numerous different institutions and private citizens thr
The date of this painting has been the subject of critical debate for over a century. The 1889 edition of the Prado catalogue states that it was signed but fails to mention a date. The 1910 version describes it as being signed and dated in 1620. The question is not addressed in subsequent publications until that of 1985, which refers to it as being signed and dated in 1630, the year that is again
This composition retains the structure of traditional triptychs, but the landscape links the three panels together to form a single scene, thus including the pilgrim-donor and Saint Ursula in the Mystic Marriage. The landscape includes scenes relating to the respective figures: walking pilgrims, the martyrdom of Saint Catherine, the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt.
On 14 February 1612 Juan Bautista Maíno signed the contract to execute the paintings for the monastery church of San Pedro Mártir in Toledo. Maíno agreed to a period of eight months to make the paintings, which had to portray the scenes and episodes specified by the prior of the monastery. Despite the agreement reached in the contract, the paintings were not completed until De
Steenwijck brings to the vanitas a genre in which he specialised, according to the surviving inventories -the compositional structure, scheme, colour range and lighting characteristic of the so-called monochrome banketjes or monochrome still lifes of Willem Claesz. Heda (P2754, P2655 and P2756) and Pieter Claesz. (P2753). Accordingly, the objects are arranged on a simple wooden table that is half
Echevarría was inspired by the rural heritage of Spain’s gypsy people in the early decades of the 20th century, finding alternative themes and subjects to those of the urban, bourgeois culture inherited from the 19th century. Executed in a geometrical idiom with bright, random colours, this canvas reveals the artist’s complete assimilation of the European Post-impressionist models which he
Upon the death of Charles III, Goya was asked to paint portraits of the new monarchs, Charles Bourbon IV and his wife, María Luisa of Parma. As a recently named Royal Painter, the artist was responsible for supplying portraits of the Royal Family; aided by several painters in his workshop, he was required to fulfill the commissions of numerous different institutions and private citizens thr
The custom of placing the principal figure in a portrait alongside another being that was physically or socially inferior was common practice among artists who portrayed figures from the Spanish court in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Kings, queens, princes and princesses all appeared accompanied by dwarfs, children or animals in a revealing play of hierarchies. This convention exalted t
Vista de Toledo desde la margen izquierda del río Tajo. Al fondo, de izquierda a derecha, el monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes, la muralla medieval y el puente de San Martín. En primer término, un molino hoy desaparecido.
At the National Exhibition of 1892, history painting was definitively superseded by social realism. This was largely due to the prestige of this picture, which won the first medal in Madrid after previously obtaining the same distinction at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. Directly influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage, Jiménez Aranda paints an attractive naturalist scene with no trace
The sitter, a leading figure in Parisian social circles, was the daughter of the Duke of Santoña (the origin of whose fortune came, above all, from the slave trade and real estate investments), from whom she inherited the title of Marchioness of Manzanedo. This small canvas is one of the few female portraits painted by Meissonier, who displays his skill in the almost-miniaturist rendering o
After establishing himself in Paris as portrait painter to the elegant and cosmopolitan high society of his time, Raimundo de Madrazo cultivated a particularly abundant clientele among the great ladies of the French capital. A posterior trip to America allowed him to expand his client base to include the leading families of New York. In the 1870s, when Raimundo was beginning to make a place for hi
The panel has been extended at the top: the original part is one board of Baltic oak, horizontal in grain and about 27 cm high. Sections of the unpainted edges survive on all four sides. The last ring in this original part of the panel was formed in 1418. Above is an addition, also of oak; it is cut into an arched shape fashionable in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Dendrochronol
Fortuny produces a faithful interpretation of Jusepe de Ribera’s painting in the Museo del Prado, though his attention is focused exclusively on capturing the effects of the light on an elderly man’s naked torso and he dispenses with the saint’s iconographic attributes. He thus attaches greater importance to the human figure, as in his later studies of old men made in Granada.
This still life, in which María Luisa de la Riva shows a basket with several bunches of grapes of different varieties and a number of open pomegranates, is signed in Paris, like her Grapes of Spain. It is a mature work in which she clearly repeats the formula that had brought her international success. Although the painting was awarded a prize, some critics reproached it for poor quality an
When the painting Execution of Torrijos and his Companions on the Beach at Malaga was exhibited in 1888, it was reproduced in the form of photographs and prints. It was copied various times in the Museo de Arte Moderno and its image was used to promote that museum.