Saturday and Sunday 26-27 de febrero
Museo at Fundación Lázaro Galdiano.
This impressive 20th century Italian-style mansion was built by Don José Lázaro Galdiano in 1903 to celebrate his marriage to an "Argentine heiress" named Paula Florido. Don JLG was a publisher, businessman and collector who built up an amazing collection of books, paintings, textiles, silver, porcelain, jewelry and religious artifacts (13,00 pieces of art overall) during his lifetime and let them to the city of Madrid when he died. Throughout his collecting life, he was conscious about creating a well-rounded European collection that would both be accessible to Madrileños and inform them of the great influences in art over the past centuries.
The house is big but only big enough to show about 25% of the collection at a time haha! Since I visited on both Saturday and Sunday, I took my time and quizzed myself to see how well I could identify century, nationality and artistic tradition of the artist. Lots of Flemish school works represented, but also collections of English, French, German, Castellano, Valenciano, Arabic, Florentine... There was one Bosch painting (St. John the Baptist with weird allegorical and monstruous plants and birds), a few El Greco, several Immaculate Conceptions, weird Cranach figures haha.
I really liked how the collection had been arranged so deliberately -- it read almost almost like a very organized, comprehensive textbook of art history.
Beautiful painting of "Young Christ" that had once ben attributed to Leonardo but now is attributed to someone "in his Milanese circle."
I also liked how each room had a beautiful ceiling, often depicting some mythological scene, a historical event or some theme like "patronage of the arts" or "history of España" or "flowers" based on the function of the room. Each room had excellent descriptions -- in Spanish and English -- of the works, their contextual importance and how the room was used back in the day.
JLG really liked Goya, too -- there's a whole room of his paintings.
I was also just so impressed by the objects -- hunting guns with ivory inlay and attached fork and knife (for eating?? no sé), exquisite jewel-decorated vanity sets, swords, hundreds of beautiful rosary beads. It was almost too much.
Museo Cerallbo.
Another aristocrat home in the 19th-20th centuries, belonging to Marqués de Cerralbo (Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa) -- politicians, academic, writer, archaeologist and avid collector. The palace was built with the dual purpose of being a residence and housing his collection. Very elaborately decorated interior, jammed with artifacts from around the world, paintings covering every inch of wallspace and marble pillars in practically every color of the rainbow. Bathrooms (with bathtubs made of one solid piece of marble) were designed to be displayed as much as used. Probably the room I found most intriguing was the "Sala Árabe" with its big Moroccan lantern, bold-colored cushions and dark, smoky atmosphere. He also had some Japanese armor, Chinese woodwork, lots and lots of porcelain tea sets, beautifully decadent Murano glass chandeliers (the kind with those delicate, colorful glass flowers) and, nbd, an assortment of paintings by El Greco, Zubarán, van Dyck and Ribera (as well as many many more paintings without labels).
The grand finale of the walking tour was the ballroom at the end -- the Marqués even had himself painted on the ceiling, wearing a conspicuous red coat. Must have been some wild nights here...
Lunched at bakery-restaurant called [h]arina at the Plaza de la Independencia. Fresh orange juice, 5-seed bread, salad and tarte of strawberries and cream.
Raíces exhibit in Parque del Buen Retiro
Roots wrapped up with chains and spiked by nails. What does this say about our relationship with history and ancestry?
Museo at Fundación Lázaro Galdiano.
This impressive 20th century Italian-style mansion was built by Don José Lázaro Galdiano in 1903 to celebrate his marriage to an "Argentine heiress" named Paula Florido. Don JLG was a publisher, businessman and collector who built up an amazing collection of books, paintings, textiles, silver, porcelain, jewelry and religious artifacts (13,00 pieces of art overall) during his lifetime and let them to the city of Madrid when he died. Throughout his collecting life, he was conscious about creating a well-rounded European collection that would both be accessible to Madrileños and inform them of the great influences in art over the past centuries.
The house is big but only big enough to show about 25% of the collection at a time haha! Since I visited on both Saturday and Sunday, I took my time and quizzed myself to see how well I could identify century, nationality and artistic tradition of the artist. Lots of Flemish school works represented, but also collections of English, French, German, Castellano, Valenciano, Arabic, Florentine... There was one Bosch painting (St. John the Baptist with weird allegorical and monstruous plants and birds), a few El Greco, several Immaculate Conceptions, weird Cranach figures haha.
I really liked how the collection had been arranged so deliberately -- it read almost almost like a very organized, comprehensive textbook of art history.
Beautiful painting of "Young Christ" that had once ben attributed to Leonardo but now is attributed to someone "in his Milanese circle."
I also liked how each room had a beautiful ceiling, often depicting some mythological scene, a historical event or some theme like "patronage of the arts" or "history of España" or "flowers" based on the function of the room. Each room had excellent descriptions -- in Spanish and English -- of the works, their contextual importance and how the room was used back in the day.
JLG really liked Goya, too -- there's a whole room of his paintings.
I was also just so impressed by the objects -- hunting guns with ivory inlay and attached fork and knife (for eating?? no sé), exquisite jewel-decorated vanity sets, swords, hundreds of beautiful rosary beads. It was almost too much.
Museo Cerallbo.
Another aristocrat home in the 19th-20th centuries, belonging to Marqués de Cerralbo (Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa) -- politicians, academic, writer, archaeologist and avid collector. The palace was built with the dual purpose of being a residence and housing his collection. Very elaborately decorated interior, jammed with artifacts from around the world, paintings covering every inch of wallspace and marble pillars in practically every color of the rainbow. Bathrooms (with bathtubs made of one solid piece of marble) were designed to be displayed as much as used. Probably the room I found most intriguing was the "Sala Árabe" with its big Moroccan lantern, bold-colored cushions and dark, smoky atmosphere. He also had some Japanese armor, Chinese woodwork, lots and lots of porcelain tea sets, beautifully decadent Murano glass chandeliers (the kind with those delicate, colorful glass flowers) and, nbd, an assortment of paintings by El Greco, Zubarán, van Dyck and Ribera (as well as many many more paintings without labels).
The grand finale of the walking tour was the ballroom at the end -- the Marqués even had himself painted on the ceiling, wearing a conspicuous red coat. Must have been some wild nights here...
Lunched at bakery-restaurant called [h]arina at the Plaza de la Independencia. Fresh orange juice, 5-seed bread, salad and tarte of strawberries and cream.
Raíces exhibit in Parque del Buen Retiro
Roots wrapped up with chains and spiked by nails. What does this say about our relationship with history and ancestry?
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