MADRID, SPAIN.- The Museo del Prado is exhibiting the Rosendo Naseiro Collection of still lifes which entered the Museum’s collection two months ago. This is the most important, specialised private collection in private hands world-wide and its incorporation into the Prado’s holdings makes the museum the principal point of reference for the Spanish still life. The exhibition, sponsored by BBVA, is structured around the different thematic groups represented by the forty still lifes. The paintings will be displayed in a gallery adjoining the permanent display of Spanish still lifes.

The Museo del Prado is presenting “The Imitation of the Real. Spanish Still Lifes from the Naseiro Collection acquired by the Prado” (24 October 2006 - 7 January 2007), an exhibition of the forty Spanish still lifes from the collection of Rosendo Naseiro which was acquired this July on the initiative of the Ministry of Culture and through the acceptance of the paintings by the Ministry of Finance in lieu of tax from BBVA bank.

The acquisition of the Naseiro Collection, valued at 26 million Euros, is one of the most important additions to the Prado’s collection in its entire history. The forty selected works constitute a unique group that offers an overview of almost the entire history of the still life in Spain. The collection includes masterpieces within this genre, such as Juan van der Hamen’s signed Still Life with Artichokes and Vases of Flowers (1627).

The group also contains other outstanding works by Juan Fernández “El Labrador”, Juan de Espinosa, Tomás Hiepes, Pedro Camprobín, Juan de Arellano and Luis Meléndez, as well as notably fine examples by a further nine artists not previously represented in the Museum’s collections.

The evolution of the genre of the still life (the bodegón or naturaleza muerta) in Spanish painting from the 16th to the 20th centuries is one of the most unique chapters within modern European art. With the acquisition of the Naseiro Collection, the Museo del Prado will become a key reference point in this material as its collections will include almost all the leading artists who have worked in this genre in Spain, from its earliest representatives such as Sánchez Cotán to Goya.

Re-evaluing the Spanish Still Life - The art-historical re-evaluation of the still life in Spain is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first key reference point is the memorable and ground-breaking exhibition Floreros y bodegones en la pintura española, organised in Madrid in 1935 with a catalogue by Julio Cavestany finally published in 1940. More recently, in 1983 the Museo del Prado organised Pintura española de bodegones y floreros de 1600 a Goya, curated by Alfonso Pérez Sánchez. This art-historical interest in looking afresh at the still life soon extended beyond Spain, evident in the exhibition held at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age (1600-1650), and the one organised by the National Gallery of London in 1995 entitled The Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya, curated by William B. Jordan and Peter Cherry, art historians and specialists in this field.

Also important in this new acknowledgement of the uniqueness and art-historical importance of the genre within Spanish painting are the monographic exhibitions that have aimed to reconstruct the personalities of some of the leading artists in the field. These include the exhibitions devoted to Juan Sánchez Cotán (Madrid, 1992-93), Tomás Hiepes (Valencia, 1995), Juan de Arellano (Madrid, 1998), Luis Meléndez (Madrid, 2004 and Dublin, 2004), and most recently Juan van der Hamen (Madrid, 2005 and Dallas, 2006).

The Naseiro Collection enters the Museo del Prado - The collection of Spanish still lifes and flower paintings built up by Rosendo Naseiro can be placed within the context of this process of art-historical reassessment. Begun around thirty years ago, it is now the most important group of works of this type in private hands, comprising around one hundred paintings from the 17th to 19th centuries. The most sizeable group within it consists of works from the 17th century, the golden age of this genre in Spain, while there is also an emphasis on works by Valencian painters. The Naseiro collection could be described as a private collection of Spanish Old Masters with a high degree of specialisation.

For the Prado, the acquisition of the most important works from this collection is a unique opportunity to complete the Museum’s holdings in this area. As is well known, the two main sources of paintings in the Prado are the Spanish Royal collections and the Museo de la Trinidad. Both had relatively small numbers of Spanish still lifes, with a few exceptions such as the series by Meléndez or a few canvases by artists such as Van der Hamen, Espinosa and Arellano. The Spanish monarchs preferred to focus their interests on still lifes from other parts of Europe, particularly Flanders. With regard to the Trinidad, the fact that the museum’s collection mostly consisted of works disentailed from Spanish religious institutions and churches inevitably meant that there were few still lifes. The majority of still lifes now in the Museum have arrived through donations, legacies and one-off purchases, many them in the 20th century. These include Francisco de Goya’s Dead Turkey and Dead Birds (acquired by the Ministry of Works for the Museum, 1900), the Still Life with Vessels by Francisco de Zurbarán (donated by Francisco Cambó, 1940), and the only work in this genre in the Museum by Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Game Fowl, Fruit and Vegetables (acquired with funds from the Villaescusa Bequest, 1993). The result is a notable collection featuring various masterpieces, but one with numerous gaps and lacking in works by some of the major names within the genre.

Forty paintings have been selected from the totality of the Naseiro Collection, chosen for their particular contribution to the Museum’s holdings. All are of notable quality, including some undoubted masterpieces in this genre. There are also a large number of works that are considered to fill important gaps in the survey of the genre as presently offered by the Museum’s holdings, either because the particular artist was not up to now represented or because they are of a particular type of still life not to be found in the Museum.

Outstanding works and groups: When selecting works for the Museum, emphasis was placed on the 17th century (twenty-eight from a total of the forty), the most interesting period within the history of the genre in Spain and the strong point of this collection.

One of the principal merits of the selection lies in its coherence as a “collection”, i.e. as a group of works of notable quality with representations of most of the high points of the history of the Spanish still life. Among these paintings there are also those that can be considered masterpieces, as well as various highly important groups of works by a single artist, in some cases little represented or not represented at all in the Prado.

An undoubted masterpiece both within the oeuvre of the artist and within the history of the Spanish still life is Still Life with Artichokes and Vases of Flowers (no. 5), signed in 1627 by Juan van der Hamen, the leading still life painter working at the Spanish court in the first decades of the 17th century. The composition mixes fruit, flowers and various vessels arranged on different planes. It brilliantly combines the taste for lingering, detailed and individualised description of the objects characteristic of the early years of the still life in Spain with a highly ingenious composition that makes this work one of the most elegant still lifes of its period. Within Van der Hamen’s artistic evolution this painting marks a perfect mid-way point between the compositional sobrie