The Artist in Italy

Ended24 June 2026 – 18 October 2026Free

This exhibition has ended.

Drawings by Federico de Madrazo, Luis de Madrazo and Vicente Palmaroli trace the artistic study trips to Italy that shaped 19th-century Spanish Romantic painters.

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On now All of November 2026

In November 1857 Eduardo Rosales wrote home from Rome that he was skipping the evening watercolour class with models in country dress, because he couldn't afford the paintbox. His roommate Vicente Palmaroli went: his watercolour of a village woman from Saracinesco here is dated 19 November 1857.

The show is 17 never-exhibited drawings by Federico and Luis de Madrazo and Palmaroli, made in Rome between 1839 and 1863. Federico's two are pencil; in the rest the costumes carry the colour. You won't find ruins or Raphael copies: the sitters are country women who sold violets on the Spanish Steps and posed for extra money. In 1842 Federico wrote that newcomers sulk for months, then leave Rome crying: the Erasmus year, 180 years early.

It's one room at the end of the permanent-collection route, included in the €3 ticket (free Saturdays from 14:00 and Sundays, sold on site only), with Italian music playing. The last free guided visit is 15 October, booked online; it closes 18 October.

Look for

Palmaroli's village woman from Saracinesco
Look for the watercolour dated 19 November 1857, painted the same week Rosales wrote that he couldn't afford the paintbox for that class.
The roof-tile headdresses of Nettuno
Luis de Madrazo's two young women from Nettuno wear the cartonella, a head-cloth stiffened with card into the angular shape of a roof tile.
Federico de Madrazo's pencil peasant woman
Dated 4 January 1840, she wears ciocie, leather-soled sandals tied on with ribbons, the shoe that gave the Ciociaria region its name.
The young Neapolitan with a mandolin
One of Luis de Madrazo's two Naples drawings, from the city he was sent to when revolution broke out in Rome in 1849.
Women of Alvito and Procida
A watercolour pairing two regional costumes; the Alvito dress is told apart by the decoration on its apron, the zinale.