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This set of paintings on the five senses (Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch) was one of the most successful collaborations of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel “the elder.” Rubens placed his figures in the magnificent courtly scenes created by Brueghel as settings for these allegories of the senses, resulting in a series of enormous quality and esthetic appeal. The subject was widely employed i
This panel is one of the models designed by Rubens for a series of tapestries on the life of the Consul Publius Decius(4th century BC). It offers an extremely eloquent depiction of this Roman hero’s moral example: following a prediction in a dream, he stoically sacrificed his own life in exchange for his people’s final victory over the Latins.
Of the artists who painted war scenes in the 17th century, none was as interested as David Teniers II in capturing images from behind the lines. With his customary tactile rigor, he depicts a plethora of military objects lying in the foreground with no apparent order and a handful of figures hanging cuirasses or helping their colleagues to remove their footgear. At the same time, he draws on one o
This singular composition, which can be dated 1775, was painted at the height of the 18th century, although, in aesthetic terms, the Baroque was already in decline as it entered its final phase. Its decorative conception echoes the refinement of the rococo, although it draws much of its material from the anaglyphic repertory of the mature Renaissance—conveniently polished—when artists were recover
The child in the portrait appears to be the Infanta María Isabel (1743-1749), the third daughter of Charles of Bourbon and Maria Amalia of Saxony, whose birth was received with special joy after the death of her two elder siblings. For this reason, she was portrayed on several occasions. She appears here as an heir being crowned by an angelic trumpeter.
The painting belongs to a series of six paintings on the story of Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, (P000951, P000952, P000953, P000954, P000955, P000956) by Antonio del Castillo (1616-1668), the leading figure within Baroque painting in Córdoba. Castillo was among the artists to introduce landscape painting into Andalusia, as evident in these scenes in which the natural setting acquires notabl
Lupercalia was a festival involving sacrifices to the two deities associated, respectively, with fecundity and childbirth: Pan and Lucina. As part of the celebrations, the men whipped their wives to make them more fecund. Two young musicians close to the scene of the sacrifice to the gods, as well as the statue on the altar itself, carry wind instruments characteristic of this type of festivity.Wi
A sketch for a ceiling at Madrid´s Royal Palace, painted in 1794. Bayeu used grisaille technique: a monochrome depiction in shades of gray and chestnut brown. The Spanish Monarchy is represented by an imposing matron wearing a helmet and surrounded by allegorical figures that constitute a group of considerable iconographic interest for which Bayeu had to conscientiously study the treatises then cu
This painting depicts the baptism of Prince Juan. It is based on the description of that event from Historia de los Reyes Católicos (History of the Catholic Kings) by Andrés Bernáldez, published in 1856. The documentary rigor of this text is transferred to the canvas, so we can speak here of the archeological veracity with which Pradilla reconstructed that historical event. Th
Scattered around the room we see a large drum and pieces of several sets of armour –one of them still on its stand– and pistols and harquebusses hanging on the wall, on which a flag is also draped. In the background, several men, perhaps soldiers in civilian clothes, are smoking and drinking. Abraham Teniers repeats, with few variants, some of the famous compositions of his brother, the famous Dav
This painting celebrates the freeing of the Swiss town of Constance from its besiegement by Swedish troops under General Horn, who sought to cut off communication between imperial troops and Spanish soldiers at La Valtellina and the Duchy of Milan. Along with The Storming of Rheinfelden (P637) and The Capture of Breisach (P859), this is one of the three paintings at the Hall of Realms that commemo
Saint Jerome was meditating in solitude when an angel sounding the trumpet of the Last Judgment appeared to him. This was a particularly popular subject with seventeenth-century artists and Alonso Cano made use of it to show his skills in the description of the angel’s foreshortened body as well as his interest in depicting the colourful, luminous landscape that opens out on the left.
While it is first listed in 1666 at the Alcázar, where it hung alongside Ribera’s Fable of Bacchus or Teoxenia (of which only three fragments have survived: two at the Museo del Prado and one in a private collection), this work’s subject and dimensions suggest it may originally have been commissioned for the Buen Retiro Palace. Along with Finoglia’s Triumph of Bacchus (P7309), Poussin’s Sac
This painting, also known as the Embarkation of the Doge in the Riva degli Schiavoni, is dated after 1595, the year Leandro was ennobled, since the signature denotes his knightly status. In the 17th century, two works with similar characteristics depicting this theme arrived in Spain and are today housed at the Museo Nacional del Prado and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (n. 546)
The Battle is a work well-known to specialists in 17th-century Neapolitan painting, largely because it was included in the original catalogue of the 1985 exhibition in Madrid on the subject. On that occasion, Pérez Sánchez attributed the work to Aniello Falcone, the name traditionally associated with the canvas. In 1857, it was included in an inventory as a work presumed to have been
This painting depicts the battle of Fleurus, near Brussels, which pitted troops from the Catholic League commanded by General Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba against Protestant Union soldiers led by Count Ernst von Mansfeld and Prince Christian of Brunswick. The Catholic League’s victory on August 29, 1622 freed Brussels—governed at that time by Isabel Clara Eugenia—from the threat pose
This panel inlaid with mother-of-pearl executed in New Spain is part of a group of twenty-four pieces that narrate the capture of Mexico.
