Museo del PradoPaseo del Prado
Mariana of Austria
The Prado's first show on an art patron: around 100 paintings, sculptures, medals, textiles, illuminated manuscripts and prints around Queen Mariana of Austria.
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Preview: written before the show opened
Atlas carries the globe, and on the globe sit two portraits: the boy king Charles II and his mother, Queen Mariana. Francisco Herrera the Younger drew it in 1668, and the Albertina in Vienna is lending it.
The Prado gathers about 100 works in Rooms A and B of the Jerónimos building: paintings, sculpture, medals, textiles, illuminated manuscripts and prints. The subject is the public image Mariana built and spread as queen and regent, set against portraits of earlier Habsburg women. So next to Mariana herself, painted by Velázquez, Mazo and Carreño, you'll find Sánchez Coello's Juana of Portugal posing with a mastiff and the Beaubruns' Anne of Austria from Versailles.
Loans come from Dallas, Sarasota, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, and Spain's culture ministry insured 29 of them for €97.9 million. There are no reviews yet. Entry is the standard Prado ticket, €15 or €7.50 reduced, and the last two hours of each day are free. It runs until 28 March 2027.
Editor's pick
Atlas shoulders a globe bearing the boy king Charles II and his mother in Herrera the Younger's 1668 drawing. Around 100 works, Velázquez's Mariana from Dallas among them, trace how a queen regent built her public image.
Look for
Atlas carrying the royal globe
Look for Herrera the Younger's 1668 drawing from the Albertina, where Atlas shoulders a globe bearing portraits of the young Charles II and Queen Mariana.
The embarkation at Finale
Micco Spadaro's canvas, two metres by three, shows Mariana boarding ship at the port of Finale around 1649, lent by the Fundación Banco Santander.
The Dutch ambassador's audience
Caspar Netscher's small painting from the Rijksmuseum records the queen regent receiving the Dutch envoy Hieronymus van Beverningk on 2 March 1671.
Mariana in mourning
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo's nearly two-metre portrait of the widowed queen, from around 1666, travels from the National Gallery in London.
Two Velázquez Marianas
A small Velázquez portrait of the queen from the Meadows Museum in Dallas, under half a metre across, and a workshop version almost four times as tall from the Ringling in Sarasota.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
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Image credits
8
- We Are Nature: An Immersive Audiovisual ExperienceCourtesy of CaixaForum Madrid
- Mauritshuis Thyssen-Bornemisza: Masterpieces from The HagueCourtesy of Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
- Kenny Scharf© Kenny Scharf. Courtesy of the artist
- Museo del PradoEmilio J. Rodríguez Posada (Emijrp), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- CaixaForum MadridDraceane / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Thyssen-BornemiszaLuis García (Zaqarbal), CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museo NavalFernando, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Nacional de Artes DecorativasLuis García (Zaqarbal), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0