RIGA.- At the end of the year, the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE in Riga (Doma laukums 6) received a special Christmas greeting from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid (Spain) – an early 16th century altarpiece The Holy Family with a Musician Angel, Saints Catherine and Barbara, which became a part of the permanent exhibition at the European Art Gallery for three months – from 6 December 2024 to 2 March 2025.

This project was realized thanks to the patrons of the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE – the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation. They are long-term cooperation partners to the museum and have made possible many large-scale and important art projects such as Magnetism of Provence (2015), 12 Characters from the Prado Collection (2017), Self-Reflection. Tintoretto, Omar Galliani, Lorenzo Puglisi (2021) etc.

The outstanding artwork of the late Renaissance was created 500 years ago in Antwerp (present-day Belgium) – one of the most economically prosperous cities of that time, where the significant circulation of money contributed to the rapid development of the art market. This specific triptych was made by the “Master of Frankfurt” and commissioned by the friars of the Santa Cruz Monastery in Segovia, Spain. The altarpiece was in the monastery for three centuries, until the Napoleon wars. In the middle of the 19th century, two parts with St. Catherine and St. Barbara were admitted to the collection of Museo del Prado. Only in 2008, at auction in London the museum managed to purchase the central part of the altar – St. Family. Prior to this exhibition, the Prado has undergone extensive restoration work to renew the central part, which has been reunited with the side hinges and now can be seen at its original appearance.

Spain’s largest museum Prado, which celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2019, is one of the richest and most famous art repositories in Europe. It was born on the basis of the collections of the royal palace. Initially, by the initiative of King Fernando VII, the Prado was established as a museum of national art, but over time, the Spanish art collections were supplemented with various outstanding works of other Western European schools.