The Renaissance Portrait at the Prado

A grand exhibition on 15th and 16th centuries European portraits

A grand exhibition on European portraits dating from the 15th and 16th centuries is a must-see this summer at the Prado Museum in Madrid. Running from June 3 to September 7, the exhibition titled The Renaissance Portrait is organised in collaboration with National Gallery of London, where a different version of the event will be presented later in the year (Oct. 15 – Jan.18).

The exhibition traces the development of portraiture throughout this period in which the genre evolved and flourished, including masterpieces that reflect the achievements of the art scenes of the day in both Northern and Southern Europe. The exhibition brings together nearly 130 works, almost half of which come from other international institutions.

It also explores fundamental issues of likeness, memory and identity, as well as examining portraits commissioned in connection with courtship, friendship, and marriage, including self-portraits of artists themselves and the very individual modes of representation they adopted for this. The evolution of the full-length portrait is one of the highlights of the exhibition, focusing on issues of power and the presentation of dynastic ambition.

Through this art show, organizers hope to enter a relatively unexplored area -that of counter-portraits and the anti-ideal. In contrast to the grandees who often employed them, this section includes portraits of court jesters and dwarves, as well as satirical representations in which painters could show off their skills as recorders of likeness, without the restrictions imposed by idealisation.

Curated by Dr. Miguel Falomir, Head of the Department of Italian and Renaissance Painting at the Museo del Prado, and Dr. Susan Foister, Director of Collections and Curator of Early Netherlandish, German, and British painting at the National Gallery, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Dr. Lorne Campbell, George Beaumont, Senior Research Curator at the National Gallery, and Dr. Falomir. The catalogue includes the participation of a number of renowned specialists on the subject.