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Beruete’s works often depict the outskirts of Madrid, where he habitually lived between November and June. Besides his views of the Guadarrama from el Plantío de los Infantes -the country estate belonging to his wife- he also frequently painted views of the city from the southeast, which he could easily reach from his house at number 15, calle Génova. Those settings were the most agr
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
Leonardo Alenza y Nieto was, without doubt, the painter par excellence of romantic costumbrismo from Madrid. (Costumbrismo refers to nineteenth-century genre scenes representing folkloric subjects and local customs.) Alenza is traditionally considered a follower of Goya for the application of his sharp, honest skills of observation to the least favoured social classes in the Spain of his era, at t
The first thing to catch the viewer’s eye is a splendid earthenware pitcher with a typical 18th-century tin-oxide white glaze and a Solomonic braided handle. The bright reflections of light on its curved surface contrast with the play of straight and curved lines that define the cheese resting beside it, and with the wavy-edged rococo plate in the immediate foreground, which overflows with cherrie
This portrait is a full-length likeness of Philip II’s third wife, Queen Isabel de Valois. She wears a black gown with pointed sleeves and a long train that is curled around her body and billows at the back. Poking out from beneath her hanging sleeves, held in place with ruby and diamond buttons and lined in white fabric, are silver and gold undersleeves. The one-piece gown is decorated with appli
As Goya had done with Rosario Weiss, Vicente López undertook to train another of the foremost artists of Spanish Romanticism, the miniaturist Teresa Nicolau. These portraits evince their great respect and appreciation for each other. The court painter depicted his pupil in a three-quarter bust with a white lace mantilla, and although by then she had already been made a member of the Academy
Although this painting bears a curious apocryphal signature in large letters at the lower left corner of the canvas, Pérez Sanchez (1983) attributed it to Victoria in 1983 on the basis of its Valencian provenance and that clergyman’s (he was a canon) reputation for making works of this sort. But, while other collections have similar pieces, this attribution raises doubts that may eventually
A figure suddenly appears on the left in a forge where various blacksmiths are working, dressed in an orange robe and wearing a laurel wreath, with rays of light emerging from his head. This is Apollo, who addresses himself to Vulcan, the blacksmith nearest to him, whose stance reveals his lameness. Everyone has stopped working, astonished by the news Apollo is recounting: the adultery of Vulcan`s
This painting entered the Prado as an original by Philips de Koninck (1619-1688), though in the 1873 catalogue it is attributed to Salomon Koninck (1609-1656). Adecade later, in the 1885 edition, Bredius ascribes it to Pieter Fransz. de Grebber (1595/1605-1652/53), an attribution that is accepted by the Prado, albeit with reservations, as of the 1933 catalogue, where the previous title, Portraits
This work joins the two known compositions on this subject by the artist, one in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice (ca. 1530-1532) and the other in El Escorial (1565-1570). When he produced a painting Titian would generally execute a copy of it to be kept in his studio as a reference point for subsequent commission. This copy was created by tracing, but once the original image had been transfe
Technical studies carried out at the Museo del Prado confirm Alonso Cano as the author of this Virgin of the Star, which belongs to the Museo del Prado but has been on loan to the Museo del Bellas Artes de Granada since 1958. Cano’s hand in this work had been questioned by the maximum authority on this artist, hispanist Harold E. Wethey. In his exhaustive monograph from 1955, Wethey considered it
Helen’s move from Sparta to Troy is described very differently in the two oldest narratives. In the Iliad, Homer describes Helen’s reticence to abandon Menelaeus, suggesting she was kidnapped by Paris. However, in his Ephemeris Belli Troiani (fourth century BC), Dictys Cretensis describes her departure as the willing flight of a woman in love. Both versions are represented in sixteenthcentury Ital
A compendium of common motifs in Meléndez´s oeuvre is found in this painting, affording it a sense of proximity and trueness to life of great artistic and documentary value. Set out among plums and figs on the characteristic wooden tabletop with visible grains and knots are a loaf of bread and a typical Talavera or Puente del Arzobispo wedding jug in white with an ochre-yellow antimon
In spite of the optimism about the drawing´s authorship expressed by one of its earlier owners, this is surely a copy after a sixteenth-century Venetian composition, which I have not yet identified. The arrangement of the figures and horizontal format with rounded ends suggest a painted compartment by an artist such as Andrea Schiavone (c. 1510-1563) or Jacopo Tintoretto (1560-1635).
Philip Pouncey was the first to propose the attribution to Balducci. The drawing was presumably made late in the artist´s career, after the painter had settled in Naples.
A former owner of this impressive drawing believed it to be from the hand of the Bolognese painter Bartolomeo Bagnacavallo, who, according to Vasari, travelled to Rome together with Biagio Pupini (active between 1511 and 1551) when Raphael was active there, from 1508 to 1520. The precise nature of Bartolomeo´s association with Raphael remains elusive: he is often referred to as his pupil, as in th
This drawing depicts the story of the nymphs Florilla and Melissa, twin daughters of Heaven and the Earth, lovers of music (Florilla) and flowers (Melissa), the honeymaker. The young nymphs were respectively turned into flowers and a swarm of bees to punish Apollo, who had fallen in love with Melissa -shown here fainting in the act of metamorphosis- to such a degree that he was neglecting his job
Dibujo en el que se representa a Judith, ricamente vestida, que sostiene la cabeza de Holofernes con la mano izquierda. Al fondo aparece la sirvienta. Se relaciona con la técnica de la xilografía al claroscuro y es quizá preparatorio para algún grabado en madera que copie obras del siglo XVI. (Texto extractado de Mena Marqués, M.: Catálogo de dibujos. VI. Dibujos italianos del siglo XVII, Museo de
