Leseprobe

93 The Spanish School The Dresden Gemäldegalerie owns 34 Spanish works. Most of them date to the 17th century, when Spain’s hegemony started to wane. But although the balance of power may have shifted away from Spain in favour of its northern rivals, the arts flour­ ished, marking the Spanish Golden Age. The Dresden collection presents a quintessential survey of this school of painting, which is otherwise strikingly under-represented among museum collec­ tions in Germany, making the Gemäldegalerie unique. All the leading masters of the Spanish Baroque are represented, includ­ ing three secure works by Diego Velázquez, previously in the ducal gallery of Modena and on view in Dresden since the 18th century. At that time his works were hardly known outside the royal collection of Spain. In addition, our collection of Spanish masters features three works by Bartolomé Estéban Murillo, two of which are on permanent display. Also on show at the Gemäldegalerie is one of the most important paintings in Francisco Zurbarán’s oeuvre. That canvas once hung in the Galerie espagnole at the Louvre and was acquired at auction in 1853, when it went on sale in London along with other high-calibre works from the collection of the abdicated French king Louis-Philippe. Just under half the paintings of the Spanish school still in the collection today were accessioned prior to the Seven Years’ War. These include nine paintings by or in the style of Jusepe de Ribera, long active and revered in Naples and whose works no important European art collection of the 18th century could afford to be seen without. In 1741 a painting by El Greco, then all but forgotten, entered the collection as a ‘Venetian work’. Its correct reattribution followed more than a century later and it is now the only painting securely attributed to the artist in Germany. In our new hang, selected works of the Spanish School are on display in three side galleries on the first floor, including one acquisition from 2006, a Baroque still life of flowers by Juan de Arellano. | iyw