New Artworks in The Spanish Gallery

New Artworks for 2024

With the return to New York of eight of the loan paintings from the Hispanic Society of America, the Spanish Gallery is delighted to announce the display of seven new paintings and two new sculptures.

We have two new paintings by the Seville artist, Murillo, whose beautiful images of the Holy Family and idealised images of street urchins were particularly popular with British collectors in the 18th and 19th centuries. One is the Mater Dolorosa – the traditional name for images of the Virgin Mary grieving over her dead son, representing every mother grieving over her son. The other is The Virgen de la Faja, a beautiful domestic image of the Virgin, surrounded by angels and changing her baby son’s clothes. This painting has long been regarded as one of Murillo’s finest works.

In neighbouring galleries, there are two paintings of the Immaculate Conception, both by the important artist, sculptor and architect, Alonso Cano. Cano who was a lifelong friend of Velázquez. He trained with him in Seville, worked with him at Court in Madrid and acted as godfather to two of his grandchildren. The Immaculate Conception is the belief in Catholicism that the Virgin Mary was born without the stain of the Original Sin imposed on all mankind after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden.

A second Spanish Landscape is now on display by Madrid artist, Francisco Collantes. Collantes is one of the only known Spanish artists who painted Spanish landscapes and who excelled in this genre of painting.

A new artist to the Gallery is Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, an important and very influential Italian artist who came over to the Spanish Court in the early 1600s, and brought with him the influence of Caravaggio’s style of painting still life painting. He stayed two years, and left behind some of his best works, including this beautiful Holy Family and exquisite Still Life painting.

Our two new sculptures are the Virgin of the Assumption and Abundance. Abundance is an intriguing sculpture, which during conservation revealed itself to have originally been an image of the Immaculate Conception to which was added the dress of an Italian 17th-century noblewoman and baskets of fruit to denote Autumn, the season of abundance and plenty.

Abundance and the beautiful, early 16th-century Spanish sculpture of The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, gift of Sir Michael Craig-Martin RA, are now on display in the gallery.