MADRID.- The Museo Nacional del Prado is opening a new chapter in its ongoing research into the role of women in art history with the launch of Women Creators of the Prado, a publishing series that will explore the lives and legacies of women who helped shape the museum’s collections.
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The new series, presented under the framework of the Prado’s long-running project “The Prado in Feminine,” begins with a volume dedicated to Christina of Sweden, one of the most fascinating figures of Baroque Europe. The publication coincides with the 400th anniversary of her birth and highlights her decisive role in the formation of the Prado’s classical sculpture collection.
Directed by art historian Noelia García Pérez, who also leads “The Prado in Feminine,” and Carlos G. Navarro, the museum’s curator of 19th-century painting, the series will eventually include fifteen volumes. Each book will focus on a woman whose work, patronage, collecting, or artistic production left a lasting mark on the museum’s heritage.
The project looks at women from two complementary perspectives. Some of the volumes will focus on queens, collectors, patrons, and political figures who used art as a language of power, representation, and cultural influence. Others will recover the stories of women artists — mainly painters and sculptors — whose works are preserved in the Prado’s collection.
The first book, written by Manuel Arias, Head of the Prado’s Sculpture Collection up to 1700, turns to Christina of Sweden, remembered as the “Minerva of the North.” After abdicating the Swedish throne and converting to Catholicism, Christina settled in Rome, where she transformed the Palazzo Riario into a major center of intellectual and artistic life.
From Rome, she assembled an extraordinary collection of classical sculptures. Over time, many of these works became part of the Prado’s holdings, forming one of the museum’s most important groups of ancient sculpture. Her legacy can still be seen in such emblematic works as the eight Muses in the Oval Room, the San Ildefonso Group, and the Faun with a Kid.
But the Prado’s new publication presents Christina as far more than a collector. It shows a woman who understood art as a tool of thought, identity, and authority. Her intervention in the Muse Thalia, where she incorporated her own portrait, reveals how actively she engaged with the meaning of the works she owned. For Christina, art was not simply decoration or possession; it was a language of intellect and power.
The series will continue later this year with volumes dedicated to Elisabeth Farnese and Mariana of Austria. Future publications will examine figures such as Mary of Hungary, Sofonisba Anguissola, Isabella Clara Eugenia, Clara Peeters, Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosario Weiss, Rosa Bonheur, Antonia de Bañuelos, and María Blanchard, among others.
With Women Creators of the Prado, the museum strengthens its commitment to new narratives and to a broader understanding of how its collections were formed. The project brings forward women who were long present in the history of the Prado, but not always given the visibility they deserved.
The first volume, Christina of Sweden, is published in Spanish, has 96 pages, and is priced at €19.50. It is available at Tienda Prado, through the Prado’s online store, and in bookstores across Spain.
