The Prado Museum temporarily exhibits a work by Giulio Clovio donated by American Friends of the Prado Museum

He Prado Museum will exhibit the work during the month of February ‘Resurrected Christ’ the artist’s first painting Giulio Clovio donated by American Friends. Until this incorporation, only one work by the artist was preserved in Spain, the ‘Sagrada Familia con Santa Isabel y San Juanito’ in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid.

“This work is a jewel of the Renaissance, due to its quality and uniqueness.“said the director of the Prado Museum, Miguel Falomir, who expressed in a statement his gratitude to American Friends of the Prado Museum and its previous owner, Pilar Conde.

Falomir points out that ‘Resurrected Christ’ is historically linked to Spain and represents the return of a work by “one of the great miniaturists of the 16th century“. For her part, Pilar Conde has pointed out that it is a huge satisfaction to have contributed to enriching the Museum’s collections with this piece, since until now the Prado did not have any work by Clovio.

“I hope that when the public comes to see the Clovio they enjoy it as much as I have,” has indicated. The director of American Friends, Christina Simmons, comments that the entity she directs has the mission of promoting patronage in favor of the Prado Museum. “We are enormously grateful to Pilar Conde for her generosity in donating this beautiful work by Clovio and we are excited to have helped incorporate this piece into the Prado collections.“, he pointed out.

The work was possibly commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnesio to Giulio Clovio who completed it around 1550. For its execution, the artist was inspired by a sculpture by Michelangelo, of the same title, which is kept in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome.

Clovio is the creator of a new technique in which he takes advantage of the texture and tones of the support – paper, parchment or vellum – to apply color through small dots that, together, look like “like a snowfall that falls on the painting“as described by his contemporary, the treatise writer Francis of Holland.

‘Resurrected Christ’ remained in a private collection in Spain until shortly before being acquired by Pilar Conde Gutiérrez del Álamowho generously donated it to the American Friends of the Prado Museum in 2019. It has remained in storage at the Museum from that moment until the end of last year when it was effectively entered into its collections thanks to the donation from the American entity.