Talk Description: Among the treasures of the Wallace Collection is a modest but very fine collection of Spanish paintings. They were largely collected by the 4th Marquess of Hertford in the 1830s and 1840s in Paris, when the fashion for collecting Spanish art was at its highest and works by Murillo and Velázquez were much sought after. The 4th Marquess acquired a total of thirteen paintings attributed to Murillo and eight to Velázquez, along with the only known Alonso Cano painting in the United Kingdom.
Although modern day scholarship no longer accepts some of these paintings as fully autograph, the Wallace Collection contains several icons of Spanish art such as Velázquez’s enigmatic portrait of a The Lady with the Fan and Murillo’s exquisite The Marriage of the Virgin, painted on a mahogany panel.
Join Director of the Wallace Collection and expert on Spanish art, Dr Xavier Bray, who will explore the context in which these works were made, whether Spanish ecclesiastical institution or royal palace, and their importance in the wider context of collecting in 19th-century Europe.
ARTES 