Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao shows Goya's Portrait on Loan from Prado

Wednesday, 29 October 2008 19:59

 

BILBAO, SPAIN - From 1941, this remarkable Goya portrait used to form part of the Félix Váldes Bilbao Collection. The painting depicts Joaquina Téllez-Girón y Alfonso-Pimentel, Marquise of Santa Cruz, at the age of 21. The sitter, a much-admired woman in her time, was considered to be a faithful representative of illustrated aristocracy.After many changes in fortune, however, it was finally acquired by the Prado National Museum in 1986. The portrait is currently on loan to the museum from the Prado. On view though 18 January, 2009.

Portrayed in a reclining position, she is dressed in contemporary French fashion, wearing a crown of oak leaves and fruit symbolising virtue, fortitude and constancy and carrying a guitar-lyre that serves to further emphasise Goya’s personal evocation of the Classic world.

Francisco Goya, considered to be "the Father of Modern Art," began his painting career just after the late Baroque period. In expressing his thoughts and feelings frankly, as he did, he became the pioneer of new artistic tendencies which were to come to fruition in the 19th century. Two trends dominated the art of his contradictory; they actually were not. Together they represented the reaction against previous conceptions of art and the desire for a new form of expression. In order to understand the scope of Goya's art, and to appreciate the principles which governed his development and tremendous versatility, it is essential to realise that his work extended over a period of more than 60 years, for he continued to draw and paint until his 82nd year.

Shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War, it was decided to build a new home for both Museums, now united in a single institution known for years as the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts and Modern Art.

The new, neo-classical building was built in the city's 19th century Ensanche or new town district to a project drawn up by architects Fernando Urrutia and Gonzalo Cárdenas. The present-day Bilbao Fine Arts Museum was inaugurated in 1945. Today, the outstanding Bilbao Fine Arts Museum collection has more than seven thousand works, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper and the applied arts ranging in time from the 12th century to the present day. Besides many major early and Old Master works, it also has a broad sampling of modern and contemporary art, placing particular emphasis on paintings from the Spanish and Flemish schools, together with a major collection of works by Basque artists.  Visit : http://www.museobilbao.com/

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~