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Temporary exhibition: Saint Andrew (after Ribera) by Fortuny

Saint Andrew (after José de Ribera), by Mariano Fortuny Marsal

1 april - 26 october 2014

Room 9

The Museum is presenting for the first time Mariano Fortuny’s copy of Ribera’s Saint Andrew, painted in 1867. Acquired by the Prado in February of this year, Fortuny’s oil increases the Museum’s holdings of this Catalan painter, particularly with regard to his interpretations of works by the great Old Masters and his affiliation with Ribera, an artist who influenced European realism.

To set Fortuny’s painting in its context, it will be displayed from today in Room 9 alongside Ribera’s original, which inspired him and which he copied from life in the Museum’s galleries. Also on display is Elderly Man, nude, in the Sun, which reflects Fortuny’s assimilation of Ribera and is the principal work in a series of studies painted from life in Granada between 1870 and 1872.

Saint Andrew and the watercolour copy of Velázquez’s Menippus, also in the Prado’s collection, together make Fortuny the artist of his generation who interpreted the great Old Masters with most originality, deriving significant lessons from them for the development of his own art.