'The Duchess of Alba' Goya will be exhibited at the Fine Arts Museum of Seville

'The Duchess of Alba' Goya will be exhibited at the Fine Arts Museum of Seville

The portrait, one of the most famous Spanish painting has only left once the Liria Palace in the last 30 years · yesterday began assembling the 40 paintings from the show which opens on 15 octubrel Alba House Collection . From 16 October to 10 January Fine Arts Museum of Seville, Spain.

As a luminous figure, wearing a white chiffon gown adorned with special touches of red in the sash, collar and the loops and chest hair and accompanied by a lapdog. Thus Francisco de Goya portrayed one of the most attractive and charismatic women of the Enlightenment Madrid Dona Maria Teresa del Pilar Cayetana de Silva y Alvarez de Toledo, Duchess of Alba XIII. The extensive literature on the character makes it one of the most famous paintings of Spanish painting, and certainly the preferred Cayetana de Alba, who has said in numerous interviews his fondness for this woman of strong character, loving the world of bohemian and art of one who, according to reports at the time and the interpretations of researchers and scholars, Goya was smitten.

After intense negotiations with the promoters of the House of Alba Collection exhibition, sponsored by the Foundation Cajasol, Goya's painting of almost two meters high will be the star of the selection of 40 works from -35 Liria Palace and 5 Dueñas-that from next October 15 and until January 10 will be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville.

The arrival in the capital city of the production work of the Aragonese painter has not been easy. The delicate state of conservation of this painting dated in 1795 discouraged at first transfer. The insistence of the organizers, with the Provincial Delegation of Culture to head, and "absolute assurances offered technical museum, said yesterday this medium spokesman Fundación Casa de Alba, have brought about this great Seville achievement for the gallery that opens the exhibition season with this sample. In this regard, the head of the Museum Conservation Service and curator of the exhibition, Valme Munoz, said the hard work that involves the transfer of these works and the special care that must be placed so as not to damage any.

The occasion merits because, in the words of Bernard Well, Provincial Delegate for Culture, "will summarize the history of the Duchy of Alba in regard to art and enjoy the pictures that have never left the Palace of Liria de Madrid ". In fact, in the past 30 years, the portrait of the aristocrat has left only these walls once: last year for the exhibition The Spanish Portrait. Del Greco to Picasso in the Prado, time that first met the two paintings of the Duchess of Alba by Goya, white and black, the latter table is kept in the Hispanic Society of New York, which represents after the widowed duchess.

And if this is the most important female portrait exposure, the male protagonist is on the master Titian portrait made of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Grand Duke of Alba, one of the most fascinating characters in history, a hero to some and paradigm of cruelty to others. Just this jewel of the Renaissance, which generally represents a mature and serious, was one of the paintings were placed yesterday in the temporary rooms which have the contents of this historic event that will review the five centuries of the duchy through unique pieces and invaluable as a Nativity, the Italian Baroque painter Luca Giordano, Crowning with Thorns by José de Ribera and Portrait of Canon Miranda Murillo.