The Museum of Romanticism hosts ‘The Artist in Italy’ with 17 unpublished drawings by Federico and Luis de Madrazo

The National Museum of Romanticism presents the exhibition ‘The artist in Italy’an exhibition that delves into the training trips that European artists made to this country in the mid-19th century.

The exhibition, which can be visited until September 20, brings together for the first time seventeen unpublished drawings made by Federico and Luis de Madrazo and Vicente Palmaroli in a period prior to the creation of the Spanish Academy in Rome.

Thus, the works belong to the museum’s collection and thirteen of them are recent acquisitions by the Ministry of Culture for the institution.

In the 19th century, these and other artists found inspiration in Rome, in the works of Michelangelo, Raphael or Giotto and in the ruins of Antiquity, but they were also captivated by the popular types that, due to their picturesque character, became the protagonists of the prints that circulated and were collected at the time.

In fact, students could find models dressed in traditional clothing in the different drawing academies that began to populate the city, and they could also draw the peasant women who went to Rome to sell their products and posed, mainly around Piazza di Spagna, in exchange for extra money.

The title of the exhibition is taken from José Galofre’s publication ‘The artist in Italy and other European countries. Current State of the Fine Arts’ (1851), where it is stated that “both the painter, the sculptor and the engraver must necessarily attend at night certain private schools of nudes, pleats and costumes, where they are admitted upon payment of a conventional remuneration.”

“Keep in mind, however, that, to form the coloring, it is necessary to copy the figure during the day, because whoever paints at night will easily fall into the falsity of the inks and the heaviness of the chiaroscuro, which always brings with it artificial light,” adds Galofre.