iGalería de las Colecciones RealesPalacio
Weaving Courtly Life. Textiles and Embroideries from the Royal Collections
This exhibition has ended.
Exceptional royal textiles and embroideries, many never before displayed, showing the palace workshops behind centuries of courtly furnishings.
Museum websiteMore in Madrid
The oldest thing here is a pillow. It belonged to Queen Berengaria, dates from before 1246, and was recovered from her sarcophagus at the royal monastery of Las Huelgas. Elsewhere in the show sits a walnut bathtub lined in silk satin, built to pass for a divan when nobody was bathing.
More than 200 pieces, most never shown in public and about 80% restored in Patrimonio Nacional's own workshops, are grouped by theme rather than date in five sections. They run from canopies and a throne chair that marked where the king sat, through two state beds made for Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma's 1802 visit to Barcelona, to the palace offices that made and looked after it all. You finish in the royal dressing room, among bathtubs, a bidet and an 1818 baby-changing table.
It closes on Monday 12 October, a holiday, open 10:00 to 19:00 on Floor -3. Entry is €14 with the Gallery or €8 for the temporary exhibitions alone.
Look for
Queen Berengaria's pillow
The oldest piece in the show, made before 1246 and recovered from the queen's sarcophagus in the royal pantheon at Las Huelgas.
The sultane bath
A French walnut bathtub from around 1770, lined in silk satin, that hides what it is by turning into a divan.
The 1802 state beds
A column bed and a Polonaise bed, built in the royal workshops for Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma's visit to Barcelona.
The scented cushions
Sixteenth-century cushions once stuffed with petals, musk and amber to perfume the royal linen.
The life jacket
A late-19th-century float covered in cotton that doubled as a mattress.
Good for
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
The Gallery publishes a family guide (Guía para familias) for this show.
Also at Galería de las Colecciones Reales
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
7
- Galería de las Colecciones RealesJavier Pérez Montes (Nerve net), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Works in Passing: Cerralbo and the Women Who Protected Cultural HeritageCourtesy of Museo Cerralbo
- Los Moreno, Art PhotographersCourtesy of Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
- Madrid in the Golden Age: Crucible of Destinies and Landing of GeniusesCourtesy of Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
- Museo CerralboZarateman, CC0
- Espacio Fundación TelefónicaLev (Flickr: _lev_), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San FernandoStanislav Kozlovskiy (Ctac), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0