Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth

Centuries is the second publication in a series of systematic

catalogues of the National Gallery of Art's

holdings in paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts.

The more than two dozen volumes of The Collections

of the National Gallery of Art will fulfill our responsibility

to provide a complete description and interpretation

of our extraordinary collections to both the

inquiring general visitor and to the specialized scholar

in art history. The books in the series are written by

Gallery curators and leading outside authorities, thus

taking into account the issues and methodologies

unique to each field.

We are fortunate that this important project has

been informed by the knowledge and expertise of

two leading authorities on Spanish painting, Jonathan

Brown and Richard Mann. Professor Brown's

books on Velazquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán, on other

Spanish artists, and on the history of Spanish patronage

are among the most respected in the field. Professor

Mann has contributed his specialized knowledge

of El Greco and Goya and their patrons.

The Spanish paintings in the National Gallery,

though restricted in number, are an important part of

the old master collection. Here it is possible to see

early and late examples of El Greco's painting, Velazquez'

work on an intimate scale, Murillo addressing

both the sacred and the profane, and Goya's incisive

portraits of Spain's aristocratic and intellectual society.

Only those Spanish paintings in the Kress collection

have been catalogued extensively before, by

Colin Eisler in 1977. Since that date, heightened interest

in Spanish art among the public and among

scholars has spurred monographic exhibitions and

innovative research on the artists represented in the

National Gallery's collection. Careful examination in

the conservation laboratories, using new diagnostic

methods, has extended our understanding of painters'

working methods and brought new focus to

questions of workshop practice and the distinctions

among modelli, finished works, and replicas. By setting

forth comprehensively the results of scholarly

discoveries about the Gallery's holdings, we hope to

further a more general understanding of the development

of Spanish painting and the context in which it

evolved.