This recently acquired vase exemplifies one of the many exquisite and unusual ceramic forms produced in the seventeenth century in the town of Tonalá, situated on the outskirts of the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. Low-fired, unglazed burnished vessels from Tonalá, as well as Nátan (or Natá) in Panama and Santiago in Chile, were known as búcaros de Indias. Of the various types of bucaros, those produced in Tonalá were the most aromatic. So pleasing was the aroma of the porous clay that it became fashionable, particularly for Spanish women, to consume small fragments of the pottery and rub pieces directly onto their bare skin (the clay was considered to have gastronomic and medicinal qualities, and to improve one's complexion). Finely rendered slip painting in manganese, together with the gilded decoration, distinguishes this particular vase. Birds, a dog-like animal, and floral motifs characterize the imagery. The European ormolu mounts at the mouth and base, added to the vase in the eighteenth century, further suggest the importance of this type of object for European collectors.

Gallery talk:
        October 11, 2008 11am
        Dr. Margaret Connors McQuade
        Curator of Ceramics, Furniture and Glass

A special Gallery Talk by Dr. Marcus Burke, HSA curator, discussed the new selection of paintings on view in the Hispanic Society of America's North Building Galleries. The exhibition has been divided into an ethnographic section focusing on figures and a second section focusing on landscape and the art of Sorolla. The changing treatment of the figure and landscape throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was discussed.

Gallery talk:
        September 13, 2008, 11am
        Dr. Marcus Burke
              Curator of Paintings, Drawings,
                    Jewelry, & Metalwork

After more than two years, The Hispanic Society of America once again presented works from its collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Spanish and Latin American paintings. This new selection of masterpieces includes recently conserved works by Miguel Viladrich and José María López Mezquita that have not been exhibited in New York in many years and returned to The Hispanic Society of America from highly successful exhibitions in Spain. Works from the Society's collection of paintings by Joaquín Sorolla, Ignacio Zuloaga, Aureliano de Beruete, Joaquín Mir, Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa, Argentina's Cesareo Bernaldo de Quirós, and other Hispanic Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were also included. The exhibition has been mounted in the elegant wood-paneled galleries of the Society's North Building.

Grand Re-Opening:
        September 10, 2008, 7pm

Spain’s thirteenth Duchess of Alba, has been the subject of hundreds of years of controversy. Hispanic Society curator, Dr. Marcus Burke, will relate Goya’s interactions with the Duchess and of how the museum’s 1797 portrait of the Duchess dressed as a Spanish Maja fits into it all.

Gallery talk:
        June 21, 2008, 11:00am
        Dr. Marcus Burke, Curator

The 16th-century Mexican sculptural relief depicts Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moorslayer). According to Spanish legend, the saint appeared at the battle of Clavijo where he led the Christian forces to victory over the Moorish invaders. Carved for a large altar which no longer exists, the work offers a rare and fascinating glimpse into Mexican art of this time. Probably executed by a native-born artist who had received training in European styles, the relief reflects a mix of visual conventions as local artists assimilated Spanish traditions. Conservation treatment on this recent acquisition has just been completed. Consequently, the relief once more affords impressive proof of the sculptor’s talent and the sculptural riches found in 16th-century Mexico.

Gallery talk:
        May 17, 2008, Noon
        Dr. Patrick Lenaghan,
              Curator of Prints and Photographs
        Hélène Fontoira Marzin,
              Conservator

Reception followed the lecture.

The elaborate seventeenth-century ceramic lamps recently acquired by the Hispanic Society exemplify the type of sophisticated work that was produced at the convent of the Clarissa nuns in Santiago, Chile, during the seventeenth century. The lamps formed part of a widespread Latin American colonial tradition of low-fired burnished pottery known as búcaros de Indias, which were coveted for their exotic forms as well as their aromatic, evaporative, gastronomic and medicinal qualities. Produced in Mexico, Panama, and Chile, búcaros de Indias were highly prized throughout Europe and the New World and are known to have been collected by some of the greatest European noble families of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Gallery talk:
        April 12, 2008, Noon
        Dr. Margaret Connors McQuade
        Curator of Ceramics, Furniture and Glass

Reception followed the lecture.

Over the last two decades, Francis Alÿs has assembled a significant collection of nearly identical paintings and other reproductions of fourth-century Saint Fabiola, all based on a now-lost original painted in the nineteenth century by the French artist Jean-Jacques Henner.

This obscure work has been assiduously copied by amateurs and professionals alike and has become a popular icon, a phenomenon that, as the artist stated, “indicated a different criterion of what a masterwork could be.”

The exhibition of these images at the Hispanic Society for the first time comprised Alÿs’s complete group of almost three hundred Fabiola portraits.

The exhibition was accompanied by a series of public programs including lectures, panel discussions, and gallery talks, as well as special educational initiatives that drew on the relationship between the contemporary project and the Hispanic Society’s permanent collection.

The Alÿs project was accompanied by a hardcover book that included background material on Saint Fabiola, as well as essays by art historians, theological historians, and Dia Curator Lynne Cooke. The publication also catalogued each Fabiola, including detailed descriptions and photographs, many in full-color.

Special Exhibit:
        September 20, 2007 - April 6, 2008
        The Hispanic Society of America
        New York

The lecture offered a vision of Joaquín Sorolla’s family life and its influence on his work. It explored his relationships with his wife and children with a particular emphasis on his struggle to achieve balance between the time required of his work and the time he desired to spend with his loved ones. Various excerpts from correspondence between Sorolla and his wife, Clotilde, were presented. These precious letters reveal not only his profound love for Clotilde, but also his passion for painting. Paintings where Sorolla’s family appears were also investigated as windows into the artist’s family life.

Special Lecture:
        March 8, 2008, Noon
        Blanca Pons-Sorolla

The lecture was in Spanish.
An English translation was provided.

Main Gallery
Reception followed the lecture.
RSVP: (212) 926-2234 Ext. 250

Cuauhtémoc Medina is an art critic, curator and historian who lives and works in Mexico City. PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex, UK. Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the National University of Mexico and Associate Curator of Latin American Art Collections at Tate Gallery in London. He is also a member of Teratoma, a group of curators, critics and anthropologists based in Mexico City.

He has just curated the Francis Alÿs exhibition Walking Distance from The Studio at the Colegio de San Ildefonso Museum in Mexico City and is currently preparing an exhibition of British-Mexican artist Melanie Smith titled Ciudad Espiral/Spiral City. Among his recent publications is When Faith Moves Mountains, coauthored with artist Francis Alÿs, documenting the action produced in Lima in 2002, released by Turner in Madrid.

Special Lecture:
        March 1, 2008, 3:00 pm
        Cuauhtémoc Medina

The lecture was presented in Spanish.
An English translation was provided.

Main Gallery
Reception followed the lecture.
RSVP: (212) 293-5582

Joseph was the earthly guardian of the Christ Child, a devoted foster-father who cared for and protected the young Jesus. The relationship between father and son is charmingly depicted in these ivories from the Philippines, in which Joseph holds the Child's hand as they walk together.

The gallery talk will focus on the art of ivory carving in the Philippines using the example of the recently restored St. Joseph and the Christ Child.

The cult of St. Joseph, promoted by St. Teresa of Ávila, became popular in Spain and its colonies beginning in the seventeenth century. The ivory figures of Joseph and Jesus manifest the multicultural nature of the Spanish colony, where Chinese-Philippine artists produced such devotional figures for the Filipino Catholic population and for export.

Gallery Talk:
        February 16, 2008, 12:00 p.m.
        Mr. Constancio del Alamo
              Curator of Archeology, Sculpture, &
                            Textile

This charming portrait depicts a young princess (infanta) of the Spanish royal family during the reign of King Charles IV (1748-1819) and Queen Maria Luisa of Parma. The sitter wears the purple-and-white ribbon of the Order of Royal Dames of Maria Luisa, an all-woman chivalric order founded by the queen in 1792. The order admitted the women of the royal family and non-royal noblewomen of the highest social standing. That the sitter is royalty may be inferred from her being approximately twelve to sixteen years old, since only an infanta would have been admitted to the Order at such a young age.

Agustín Esteve was a close follower of Francisco Goya, whom he served as studio foreman. Both Goya and Esteve used the compositional formula shown in the Society’s portrait, in which the sitter is seated on a chair and holds a fan, in a number of works in the mid-1790s. The Society’s portrait was cut down along the bottom edge at some point in the nineteenth century. It may have originally depicted the princess at full length.

Gallery Talk:
        January 12, 2008, 12:00 p.m.
         Dr. Marcus B. Burke
              Curator of Paintings, Drawings,
                    Jewelry, & Metalwork

For many years, a magnificent smaller work by El Greco, the Head of Saint Francis, has been ignored by scholars and not exhibited at the Society.

Accepted as authentic by most earlier and many recent scholars, it was relegated to the category of “copy” by the American professor, Harold Wethey, in his pivotal 1962 catalogue of El Greco’s works.  Wethey, however, knew the work only in the state in which it had arrived at the Society, with numerous old overpaints and other condition issues that he admitted in his text. Since then, the work has been conserved, initially by the late George Papadopoulos, former paintings restorer at the Society, and most recently by Halina McCormack, senior paintings conservator. Now mounted in a splendid period frame from the Spanish Golden Age, the picture is once again revealed as a masterpiece, probably painted as an image for an altar ensemble or a as a work of private devotion.

Gallery Talk:
         October 20, 2007, 12:00 p.m.
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings and Drawings

In 1911, Archer Milton Huntington commissioned the famed Valencian artist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) to create a series of large scale mural paintings representing the provinces of Spain. Originally titled “Vision de Espana” by the artist, the murals were destined for the newly renovated western extension to the Society’s Main Building, now known as the “Sorolla Room.” The fourteen murals were installed on December 1922, although they were not officially inaugurated until January 1926. Since then, the paintings have remained practically untouched. Due to the imminent deterioration of the roof, the museum will begin a full restoration of the Sorolla Room in the fall of 2007 enabled by the generous support of the Bancaja Foundation. The paintings have been thoroughly cleaned by a group of conservators from Valencia collaborating with the Hispanic Society’s conservators. While the building is being renovated, the paintings will be displayed in Valencia, Seville, Barcelona, Bilbao, and Madrid under the continued sponsorship of the Bancaja Foundation.

Gallery Talk:
         June 23, 2007, 12:00 p.m.
         Dr. Marcus B. Burke, Curator of
               Paintings, Drawings, and Metalwork
         Halina McCormack, Conservator of
               Paintings

The Hispanic Society, in collaboration with a benefactor of the Hispanic Society, is preparing an exhibition of approximately 90 Spanish Old Master Drawings from the late Renaissance to the era of Francisco Goya (from 1580 to about 1820). The selection includes both works in the collections of the Hispanic Society and a stunning group of drawings from a private collection that are promised gifts to the Hispanic Society. Among the artists represented are Jusepe de Ribera; Alonso Cano; Antonio del Castillo; Bartolomé Murillo; Francisco de Herrera the Elder; Francisco de Herrera the Younger; Francisco Rizi; Claudio Coello; the Renaissance artists Pablo de Céspedes, Luis de Vargas, and Blas del Prado; Francisco Bayeu and other members of Goya’s generation; and of course, twelve works by Goya himself. Many of the drawings are unpublished and will be shown for the first time.

Special Exhibit:
        December 4, 2006 - March 4, 2007
        Museo Nacional del Prado
        Madrid, Spain

The porcelain factory of Buen Retiro was founded by Charles III (1716-1788) in 1759 when he succeeded to the Spanish throne and moved the factory he had established at Capodimonte in Naples, along with the workers and their raw materials, to Madrid. The fleur-de-lis mark of Capodimonte continued to be used at Buen Retiro, often making it difficult to distinguish the two productions. The Society will celebrate the soft-paste porcelain of Buen Retiro by exhibiting a pair of candelabra and a covered vase in the Pompeian style from its collection. The careful painting of classical figures, landscapes and architectural ruins in soft pastel hues characterizes the Pompeian style of the late eighteenth century. This style was largely inspired by findings at Herculaneum and Pompeii, which began to be excavated in 1748 with the orders of Charles, who was king of the Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily) from 1735 to 1759.

Gallery Talk:
        May 19, 2007, 12:00 p.m.
         Margaret Connors McQuade
         Curator of Ceramics, Furniture and Glass

As part of the Convergence and Diversity exhibition series, The Hispanic Society of America will exhibit a recently acquired Visigothic belt buckle dating from the 6th century. These symbols of rank and status are among the most striking works produced by the Visigoths, who dominated the Iberian Peninsula from the beginning of the 5th century A.D. until 711. The copper alloy belt buckle has an oval shaped loop and rectangular attachment plate that is decorated with a cloisonné inlay of garnets over gold foil, green glass, and a white material that might be cuttlefish bone. During the restoration process two small fragments of plain weave textile and a small fragment of leather were discovered under the attachment plate.

Gallery Talk:
        April 21, 2007, 12:00 p.m.
         Constancio del Alamo
              Curator of Sculpture
         Janis Mandrus, formerly a conservation                associate at the Hispanic Society
               and now a Conservation Fellow at the
               Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Hispanic Society of America has loaned Goya’s The Duchess of Alba (1799) and Velázquez’s Portrait of a Little Girl and Count Duke of Olivares to this important large-scale exhibition of Spanish painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition will explore the intrinsic themes which distinguish Spanish painting. Throughout the exhibit, tours of the Hispanic Society’s Museum and Library will be provided (at 2:00 pm on Saturdays) to complement the Guggenheim’s exhibition.

Special Exhibit:
         November 17, 2006 - March 28, 2007
         Guggenheim Museum

The mermaid (sirena in Spanish) was a common motif in the decorative arts of the Spanish Renaissance. The museum's recent acquisition was one of at least four sixteenth-century lamp supports in the church of Santa María at Tordesillas, near Valladolid in Spain. The mermaids were hung from brackets attached to the top of pillars in the church, with ropes passing through pulleys held between their hands (clasped together as if in prayer). Lamps could then be lit and hoisted via the ropes to give light to the crossing or altar areas.

Gallery Talk:
         March 17, 2007, 12:00 p.m.
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings, Drawings, and
                        Metalwork

Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa (1871-1959) was born in Barcelona, but in 1894, he moved to Paris where he would live until 1914. While in Paris, he absorbed influences from different avant-garde movements, such as fauvism and Cubism, as well as Central European developments, namely the art of Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession.  Anglada, however, had very little contact with the Modernistes in Barcelona until he exhibited at Els Quatre Gats in 1900. After World War I, Anglada moved to Mallorca and his style changed, perhaps in response to the horrors of the war or perhaps in response to the surroundings found in his new home.

Gallery Talk:
         January 20, 2007, 12:00 p.m.
         Dr. Marcus Burke, Curator of
                  Painting

A “blockbuster” exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, produced in collaboration with the Hispanic Society of America. Included are paintings, sculpture, furniture, metalwork, lacquer, ceramics, and other media from all corners of the New World beginning with the European discoveries of 1492 and subsequent and running until the end of the colonial period in the 1820s. The Executive Director and curators of the Hispanic Society have played an active role in the development of this highly important exhibition.

Special Exhibit :
        September 16 - December 31, 2006
         The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Indicative of the extraordinary crafts of the architects and decorators of the late Middle Ages, both in Muslim and Christian Spain, these doors also tell the story of the eventual reconquest of the Iberian peninsula by Christian rulers, and the willingness of those rulers to embrace the Islamic arts of the conquered territories.

Gallery Talk:
         December 2, 2006, 12:00 p.m.
         Constancio del Alamo, Curator of
                  Sculpture, Textiles, and
                  Architecture

This exhibition focused on the responses to the Spanish Civil War in the USA as seen from both sides of the debate (Republican and Nationalist). It featured brochures, pamphlets, newsletters and other propaganda produced in the USA, as well as items published in other countries (Spain, France, Great Britain). All items were drawn from the collections of The Hispanic Society of America. The exhibition was being held in conjunction with the international symposium, “Antes y después de la Guerra Civil Española: La respuesta de las Américas” (28-29th September, 2006, in the Instituto Cervantes and the Graduate Center, CUNY).

Special Event and Exhibit:
         September 29 - November 18, 2006

This symposium highlighted Archer M. Huntington (1870-1955) as a lover of Spanish antiquities. Huntington not only directed excavations in Itálica, birthplace of the emperors Hadrian and Trajan, but also amassed a collection of over 2,000 Spanish antiquities from the Paleolithic to the Visigothic periods. During the past three years, the speakers have been researching The Hispanic Society of America’s archaeological objects, to be published as: Catalogue of the Archaeological Collections from Spain Held at The Hispanic Society of America.

Symposium:
         October 26, 2006

Under the Honorary Presidency of H.E. the Duchess of Alba de Tormes and on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Association of Friends of the Museo Romántico, Madrid, the Director of Música y Palacios sponsored a performance in the fourth Music and Palaces Concert Series by violinist Jesús Reina, Fundación Málaga Fellow. Señor Reina played the works of Brahms, Monasterio, and Sarasate.

Music and Palaces Concert:
         October 25, 2006
         HSA Sorolla Room

Since its founding in 1727, the Spanish ceramic factory known as the Real Fábrica de Alcora focused on fine painting and modeling. Plaques, which were designed to be hung on a wall, were particularly well suited for painterly works, giving artists the opportunity to transform clay into canvas. The recently acquired plaque of the “Apotheosis of Charles III” in low relief represents one of the largest pieces from the factory. The plaque is based on an engraving by Manuel Salvador Carmona dated 1761. Despite the early date of the engraving, the mark A on the reverse indicates that the plaque was made after 1784, when it was required that all pieces be marked, and may have been made after the King’s death in 1788.

Gallery Talk:
         October 21, 2006
         Dr. Margaret E. Connors McQuade
         Curator of Ceramics, Furniture, and Glass

The highlight of the Hispanic Society’s free events was a performance of Spanish Dance by the Ballet Hispanico School Ensemble. Treasure hunts throughout the museum’s galleries were held throughout the day with special prizes!

Manhattan Borough President, Scott M. Stringer and The Hispanic Society of America Museum and Library invited all New York educators to a reception in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and in honor of Our Manhattan Educators. Wine and Tapas were served and free tours were given throughout the night.

Hispanic Heritage Reception:
         October 11, 2006, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
         HSA Sorolla Room

Among the most important public events in Madrid were the lying-in-state and funerals of the monarchs and their queens, followed in cities throughout the Hispanic world by exequies, or public commemorations. This painting commemorates the death of María Luisa (Marie Louise) de Orléans, the French princess who was the first wife of Charles II, King of Spain. Said to have died of food poisoning in 1689 at the age of 26, the young queen left many mourning admirers.

Gallery Talk:
         September 9, 2006
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings, Drawings, and
                Metal Work

Jet, a fossilized carbon mineral related to coal (hence the term, “jet black”), is found in Asturias in northern Spain. During the middle ages, pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, began to associate images in this mineral with the shrine. The exhibition investigated an unusual art form and one of the most important devotional phenomena in Europe.

Gallery Talk:
         July 8, 2006
         Constancio del Alamo
         Curator of Sculpture, Textiles, and
               Architecture

This spectacular tray was created in Upper Peru, the high plateau in the Andes Mountains that runs from Peru into Bolivia. One of the most important silverware-producing regions in the world, Upper Peru and Bolivia benefited from the almost inexhaustible mines at Potosí in Bolivia, the source, with Mexico, of most of the world's silver.

Gallery Talk:
         June 3, 2006
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings, Drawings, and
                Metal Work

The Banus family, descended from the family of Antonio García, Sorolla's father-in-law, has recently brought an intriguing group of pictures to the Hispanic Society.

Gallery Talk:
         April 22, 2006
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings, Drawings, and
                Metal Work

Although largely forgotten today, Daniel Urrabieta Vierge (1851-1904) attained a distinguished position during his lifetime, with critics praising the elegance, immediacy, and realism of his drawings.

Reception:
         February 16, 2006

Exhibit:
         February 16 — April 23, 2006

Gallery Talk:
         March 4, 2006
         Dr. Patrick Lenaghan
         Curator of Prints and
                Photographs

Latin American Colonial silver offers one of the most splendid branches of the Hispanic arts of design, in part because silver was so plentiful in the American colonies. In Mexico and Lima, where supply met great demand fueled by the vast wealth of the ruling elite, silversmiths created luxurious objects for both secular and ecclesiastical use. This set of candlesticks was created by an unknown artist in Mexico City at the end of the colonial period, when the late baroque (or what would be called “Georgian” in England or America) styles of the previous decades were beginning to yield to the new Neoclassical spirit, recently brought to Mexico in the new Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos by professors such as the  Valencian sculptor, Manuel Tolsá.

Gallery Talk:
         December 3, 2005
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings, Drawings, and
                Metal Work

On October 21, 1805, in the Battle of Trafalgar, the British fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, met and defeated the fleet of Napoleon. The victory, although complete, was lessened by the death of Nelson during the battle. On display was a memorandum written on board the Victory, Nelson’s flagship, dated 9 October 1805, addressed to Vice-Admiral Collingwood, on board the Dreadnought, outlining plans for the engagement.

Gallery Talk:
         October 22, 2005
         Dr. Marcus Burke
         Curator of Paintings, Drawings, and
                Metal Work

As cartographic historian David Woodward has pointed out, maps have always been a social as well as a technical phenomenon. This material incorporated an abundance of information for art historians, semiologists, students of paleography and printing history, and many other researchers.

Special Exhibit:
      July 12, 2005 to September 18, 2005

Deeply felt, contained sorrow is expressed by the grieving Virgin, or Mater Dolorosa, a polychromed wood sculpture of ca. 1250. One of the Hispanic Society’s most memorable medieval sculptures, the Virgin was once part of a Crucifixion group, in which a figure of Christ on the cross was flanked by Mary and John the Evangelist lamenting His death. Almost every church in the Middle Ages displayed such a Calvary, thus, many figures survive. Displayed in a variety of locations, the sculptures often provided the setting for  church rituals. This particularly expressive statue presents Mary as a personification of the church.