Of the approximately 8,000 paintings exhibited, preserved, and conserved by the Prado Museum, only 60 are attributed to female artists. This 0.75% of the total is only partially displayed: currently, there are just 23 works by women on show in the gallery.
If there's an expert figure on this matter, she's Diana Larrea. Not just because of her rigorous research work but also because her artistic dedication has focused, through her work 'Inventarios Reales' ('Royal/Real Inventories'), on highlighting the lack of focus on female figures and, more importantly, the doubts regarding the attribution of works that, today assigned to women, were at one time presented under a male name.
Larrea's route includes a first essential stop at Radisson RED Madrid (Atocha Street, 123) where, until March 31st, her 'Inventarios Reales' are exhibited in collaboration with Espacio Mínimo gallery. The works, placed in the entrance hall, can be visited completely free of charge, allowing a peek into a reinterpretation of some of the Prado Museum's key pieces within the scope of female attribution.
The hotel's location, right in the heart of the Art Triangle, and its connection to the artistic environment within the Radisson RED brand, make it a perfect meeting point to start this journey; you can grab a coffee or a cocktail at its Oso Rojo space and experience the city's most artistic atmosphere just a few minutes' walk from the Prado. After this break, it's time to walk to the museum to discover those works that deserve to be observed, recognized, and claimed. We tell you more about them.
The tour suggested by Diana Larrea starts on the museum's second floor, in room 82. Here are conserved the four still lifes by Clara Peeters, a 17th-century Flemish artist. The Prado Museum is the gallery that displays the most works by this artist, who signed her paintings in a very original way; for example, 'engraving' her name on the knives in the paintings or self-portraying in reflections of some composition elements.
In the same room 82, we can discover another late 17th-century Baroque painter: Catarina Ykens. Daughter, sister, and cousin of painters, it's sometimes difficult to attribute her work since all her relatives specialized in garlands of flowers and fruits. "A female artist definitely needs a signature to be attributed a painting," explains Larrea, "a man does not." In this case, the two paintings in the Prado Museum attributed to this artist bear her signature on a fillet.
An icon and feminist reference in recent decades, Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the figures that help to claim the role of women in art. In the Prado Museum, her only work is located on the first floor, room 5: 'The Birth of Saint John the Baptist,' an essential piece of Italian Baroque.
Born in Rome and the daughter of a painter, at 17 she signed her first work. Her life was marked by the rape by another painter, a friend of her father, which conditioned both her career and personal life. Despite the challenges, she lived a very successful career, moving through Florence, where she was admitted to the Academy of Design, and later moving to Naples. The fact that this territory belonged to the Spanish crown means that today we can enjoy one of her artworks in the Prado Museum.
The route continues on the museum's ground floor. In room 55, dedicated to the Renaissance, you can find the portrait of Philip II attributed to Sofonisba Anguissola. This Italian noble painter came to Spain to join the court of this king as a lady of the queen's court, mainly because her noble status did not allow her to be considered a chamber painter, a less prestigious position. Despite the 15 years she lived in our country, only three paintings under her name are preserved.
On the same floor, within the rooms dedicated to the 19th century, the works of 8 painters and 4 miniaturists, a highly valued discipline at the time, can be discovered. Among the pictorial artists, Rosa Bonheur, very popular in her time, stands out.
Her story at the Prado Museum began in the mid-19th century when her painting 'El Cid' arrived at the warehouse. That was its place for 130 years, until in 2017 it was rescued and finally made visible to the visitors of the gallery.
In these same rooms, the work of two 18th-century painters can be found. One of them is Angelica Kauffmann, a child prodigy well recognized in her time, whose works were widely reproduced through engravings and decorative arts. A member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, she was working professionally as a painter by the age of 12, and in her later stage in London, she was a co-founder of the Royal Academy of Arts. In the Prado, you can admire her wonderful portrait of Anna Escher von Muralt.
Also known as Ana Carmona after her marriage to the Spanish engraver Manuel Salvador Carmona, Anna María Mengs was an artist born in Dresden but placed from a young age in Spain within the court of Charles III. Her father, Anton Raphael Mengs, was a chamber painter during this reign, with Anna as his right hand. This position, first as a daughter and then as a wife of artists, made much of her work invisible, so currently, there are hardly any pieces attributed to her name. The portrait she painted of her father, Anton Raphael Mengs, can be found and admired today in room 62A of the Prado Museum.
The conclusion to this tour is not without reflection. "The fact that the number of women in the Prado is 0.75% is not acceptable," points out Diana Larrea. To continue the reflection (and homage) to all the female painters, visible or invisible, of the Prado Museum, there's no better way than to know her work 'Inventarios Reales': nine paintings on canvas, in the format of 100 x 70 cm, that review the old Inventories of the gallery suggesting that, historically, various paintings today attributed to female artists were assigned to men.
These works, which will be displayed until March 31st at Radisson RED Madrid, challenge the validity of inventories and catalogs and their written record, inviting reanalysis and contrast. Using the idea of infrared reflectography, a technique used in art restoration workshops, Larrea redraws these paintings using black charcoal on canvas, drawing a parallel with the reflectograms obtained in this technique, which allow discovering the opaque layers, previous designs, and hidden color layers in the paintings. A way to highlight the importance of the original authors, also 'hidden' under other layers.
This exhibition, organized in collaboration with Espacio Mínimo gallery, will allow you to approach the concept of this multifaceted Spanish visual artist, world-renowned for exploring different plastic languages, installations, video, photography, or drawing, but above all, popular for her specific interventions in various public spaces, many of them focused on showing current or past symbolic conflicts, engaging with social tensions of our civilization.
Diana Larrea's exhibition is a perfect excuse to discover Radisson RED Madrid, the hotel with the strongest artistic link in the city of Madrid. Until March 31st, it hosts temporary exhibitions by this artist and Daniel Canogar, but its connection to art does not end there: throughout the year, it exhibits works inspired by the city of Madrid, such as the sculpture at its entrance that reinterprets El Oso y el Madroño, or the various Baroque aesthetic paintings that decorate its entrance.
This perspective, shared by all Radisson RED hotels worldwide, merges with strong bets on gastronomy (you can't miss Eneko Basque, the gastronomic proposal of Michelin chef Eneko Atxa at the hotel) or the most exclusive treatment, which you can experience if you spend one or several nights in its art-laden facilities. A complete experience!