Transparent Art. Rock crystal carving in Renaissance Milan

The Museo del Prado is presenting the exhibition Transparent Art. Rock crystal carving in Renaissance Milan, which offers an analysis of the previously little explored art form of carving rock crystal or hyaline quartz. Of the 20 examples of carved rock crystal on display in the exhibition, 14 are from the group known as “The Dauphin’s Treasure”, which belongs to the Museo del Prado, while 6 come from the Medici collections in Florence and that of Louis XIV, grandfather of Philip V of Spain, in Paris. Together they constitute a remarkable group of works which are now displayed so that visitors can visually appreciate all their artistic merits in a unique and unrepeatable experience that is further enriched by the technological support of Samsung in the form of tablets which allow for a 360-degree view of some of the objects as well as highly magnified details.

The Divine Morales

At the end of September the Museo Nacional del Prado and Fundación BBVA will present an exhibition on Luis de Morales, one of the most significant and original Spanish Renaissance masters. Featuring this artist’s most representative and best-known works, it will provide viewers with an insight into his skills in two fields, altarpieces and devotional panels. Nineteen works owned by the Prado, including the Christ on the Cross and the Resurrection gifted by Plácido Arango, will be joined by 35 from national and international museums, private collectors and religious institutions, such as the Virgin with the Little Bird from the parish church of San Agustín in Madrid, the Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John from the New Cathedral in Salamanca and the Ecce Homo from the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, which was recently restored in the Prado workshops.

Effigies amicorum. Portraits of Artists by Federico de Madrazo

To mark the publication of its general catalogue of nineteenth-century painting, Pintura del siglo XIX en el Museo del Prado. Catálogo General, and the bicentenary of the birth of the man who was its director from 1860 to 1868 and from 1881 to 1894, the Museo del Prado presents the exhibition ‘Effigies amicorum. Portraits of Artists by Federico de Madrazo’ in room 60 of the Villanueva Building, the gallery devoted to special displays of works from the nineteenth-century collections. Consisting of 21 portraits – seven canvases, twelve drawings and two lithographs – this show offers visitors the chance to reflect on a side that reveals the devotion to art of this painter, the most prominent and prolific portraitist of his generation, through images of artists.