A woman, Isabel de Braganza, was the founder and great supporter of the Prado Museum. In addition to Fernando Vll’s second wife, many other women have elevated him throughout its more than two centuries of history. The art gallery now vindicates and honors them in a new edition of ‘El Prado en feminine’. It is a tour of more than thirty of the great works that shine in the gallery thanks to the contribution of women with very real power, such as Queen Cristina of Sweden, Isabel de Borbón or Mariana of Austria.
Until September 8 you can enjoy this walk that celebrates the passion for art and collecting of notable women from the European royal houses “whose contribution was decisive for the enlargement of the former royal collection, and consequently for the museum” . This is confirmed by Noelia García Pérez, designer of the route.
He has selected 34 works that are displayed in four sections distributed in 18 rooms of the museum. A quarter of the pieces have left the warehouses to occupy relevant positions among the most distinguished in the gallery. They are presented with renewed, more egalitarian posters and in which the protagonist stops being the wife, consort or daughter of… to be presented with the titles of her queen or regent.
The tour, which follows a chronological criterion, focuses on great figures of the 17th century who exercised their patronage and enriched the Prado collections. Mariana of Austria, Isabel de Borbón, and Cristina Sweden are the three main protagonists, along with Isabel Clara Eugenia. They stand out as the great artistic promoters of this period with a closer connection to the Prado collections.
‘Queen Mariana of Austria’. Oil by Velázquez.
Prado Museum
The commissioner remembers that without their contribution “the Prado would not be what it is today.” «A woman, Isabel de Braganza, founded it and another, Isabel II, daughter of Ferdinand VII and his fourth wife, María Cristina de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, maintained it when, upon the death of her father, she prevented the royal collection from being divided. “He had to compensate his mother and his sister so that the collection did not disintegrate,” says Noelia García Pérez.
“The story of art history has been written and promoted by men, who hid or minimized the role of women, especially in the 17th century, when their contribution was fundamental,” says the curator, who vindicates these patrons and collectors presenting masterpieces promoted or treasured by them “with a gender perspective.”
sculptural gift
“To Cristina of Sweden, the great promoter of the Baroque, we owe the best of the museum’s sculptures and iconic pieces, such as the panels of ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ by Dürer,” highlights the curator in the lobby of the extension. of Moneo, where the eight marble sculptures of the muses, donated by the Scandinavian queen, shine. Coming from the Riario Palace, the Roman residence of the Swedish sovereign, they are one of the jewels of the Prado.
Hall of the Muses in the Moneo extension with the sculptures gifted by Cristina of Sweden.
Prado Museum
«When he proposed to abdicate and convert to Catholicism, Christina of Sweden approached Philip IV, the monarch who embodied all the values of Christianity and to win him over, she gave him the tables of ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ by Dürer and the eight muses» explains the curator under the gigantic equestrian portrait of Christina of Sweden, a work by Sebastién Bourdon painted in 1653 and restored and rescued for this tour. She remembers that the Swedish queen was one of the first royal women to wear pants in Spain.
Mariana of Austria, wife of Philip IV and queen regent of Charles II, is another of the great protagonists. Regent between 1665 and 1675, upon the death of Philip IV she assumed power alone. Ignored for being a foreigner and lacking political experience, “she was very skillful and built her image of power,” says the curator, a professor of art history at the University of Murcia and an authority in the study of female artistic patronage and the relationship between art power gender in the Renaissance.
Among the pieces on the tour, some of the museum’s great icons shine, such as the fabulous equestrian portrait that Velázquez made of Queen Isabel de Borbón that is in the ‘Las Meninas’ room, that of Queen Mariana of Austria also by the master Sevillian, or those of the Infanta Margaret of Austria by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo and that of Queen Anne of Austria by Rubens.
‘Queen Isabel de Borbón, on horseback’. Oil by Velázquez.
Prado Museum
Among the nine works rescued from the warehouses, ‘Judit and Holofernes’, by Domenico Tintoretto, stands out, compared in the central nave with the one carried out by Carreño de Miranda to decorate the wall of the Hall of Mirrors where he placed Mariana of Austria in one of his Pictures. Also ‘Queen Maria Theresa of Austria and the Grand Dauphin of France’, by Beaubrun; ‘Queen María Luisa, with roses in her right hand’.
A pioneer in the task of making women visible in art by highlighting their contribution, the Prado has become a reference and example for institutions such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam or the National Portrait Gallery in London. “It demonstrates a firm commitment to telling history from a more inclusive point of view, creating new stories in which women are protagonists in their own right,” concludes the curator.
