10 years of American Friends with a new acquisition for the Prado. Recorded on January 10, 2024
Welcome back to the Prada Museum we’re here with our weekly sessions in English on the Museum’s social media programming a few minutes before the museum opens and this is a project supported by American Friends of the Prada Museum we are a nonprofit and we’re going to take it the moment to present
Our latest contribution to the museum which is this Beautiful Agony in the garden by Paulo San leocadio and we’re going to take advantage of we are in this Sublime early Italian Renaissance Gallery which on the Museum map is room 56b to also explain a little bit about the first 10 years of American
Friends of the Prada Museum we are a US nonprofit that was created in 2014 to really strengthen ties and facilitate philanthropic support for the Prada Museum from the United States and we are absolutely inspired in the Amigos with over four Decades of work 44,000 active donors today and innumerable projects that help the
Museum’s programming and its art Legacy we have a beautiful example of one of these right here which is the incorporation a few years ago of the virgin of the pomegranate by Fran Angelico the fund Amigos gave a very large contribution to the Museum’s funding for this acquisition and we are so lucky that
Right next to these beautiful the version of the pomegranate the prela of the enunciation we also have one of American friend’s first well early projects which was to help fund the Museum’s restoration of the Annunciation uh by Frangelico and this we did in equal collaboration thanks to the
Generosity of the friends of Florence as well and at that same time American friends was able to quickly give to the restoration laboratory the newest and highest technologically advanced infrared camera which the laboratory uses to study all of the works before they head to Restoration so that was one of our early
Projects and now in our 10th year our latest contribution um is to help the museum with we’ve matched it with equal funds uh matched the museum the pr museum with equal funds to acquire this Exquisite work by the artist Pao the San leocadio so Paulo San leocadio is an Italian artist born in
1447 trained in Ferrara and padwa and he leaves uh Italy at the call of the Cardinal Rodrigo borha of the boria uh family to come to Valencia the Valencia area in Spain where he sets up workshop and he works probably for the next three decades so he’s an Italian master who
Moves to Spain and he uh really helps introduce the Renaissance the Italian Renaissance techniques into that City and the area of influence and what we have is um Agony in the garden is from the passion stories of The Passion of Christ in the Bible then the gospels where after the Last
Supper uh jesus takes his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane which is an Olive Garden on the outskirts of Jerusalem and he is asked them to accompany him and especially ask him to accompany Peter James and John and leaves the other nine disciples a little bit further away and he wants them to
Accompany him in his prayer to God where he’s praying that if Lord this his his future um crucifixion on the Crist if this cup can be passed over me May it may it happen but your will be done Lord so here we have the angel with the cup and this
Comes from the scriptures Jesus praying and accepting God’s Will and then his the scriptures say his disappointment in his Apostles that cannot stay awake to accompany him in this such dramatic moment uh in his life so we have this beautiful I love that where we’re looking at right now that these
Disciples are behind a hill in this Garden of GTH Gethsemane uh this technique that Paulo San leocadio has to create that extra uh space and area within the painting and he we also know from his painting technique an influence that he must have known work by Andrea
Mana and probably the Venetian work of giovan balini which I take advantage to remind everyone were brother-in-laws Andrea man and Giovanni balini were brother-in-laws so they obviously knew each other especially on a personal level um and knew their work but so here we have the Pao Sano next to the Andrea
Mona with and he’s there’s an Agony in the garden of Andrea Mana that also has a triangular composition a per pyramid composition that we see here and the colors and the crispness of the folds in the um in the tunics and the cloaks the crispness the colors are also
Reminiscent of this technique that’s that’s used by Andre mana and the colorism the shiny enamel that takes us back also to works of Giovani balini the Venetian color uh painting the Ferrara school and techniques brings them more of a softness to the face but what we have
Overall is a Beautiful Agony in the garden in this landscape of Jerusalem and then we also see um uh the arm the the soldiers coming to arrest Christ and here we have Judas coming who’s going to give Jesus a kiss to identify him uh as Jesus for their
Rest so I’d like to take a moment after these 10 years to thank everyone who’s made American friends what it is uh I’d like to thank our donors the five works of art that we’ve now helped bring to the museum the Velasquez the Julio clovio the Picasso
The basa and now help with the Pao San leocadio thank all of our generous donors who made each one of those donations possible and thank our Founders that are volunteers and donors that make this institution run thank all also our yearly contributors and especially in this case those who made an
Extraordinary donation for the Poo San leoo matching fund contribution thank you very much and please we encourage everyone who would like to get involved to find out more about American friends on our website and if you’re in Spain the fund Amigos and also uh come to the museum to
See this new painting that’s hanging here for just a few weeks and we will see you again next week with our session in English on another great work of art of the Prada Museum
In 2023, thanks to the generous support of our donors, American Friends of the Prado Museum contributed 300,000 euros to match the Museo del Prado’s funding for the acquisition of an exquisite version of The Agony in the Garden (1490-1500) by Paolo de San Leocadio.
This collaboration makes the 5th work of art that American Friends has helped bring to the Museo del Prado in just 10 years, along with other projects including painting and framing restoration, new infrared camera for the technical laboratory, the Ionic Sculpture gallery, outreach programs in English, and others
Join us and help make projects possible:
www.afpradomuseum.org
American Friends of the Prado Museum is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit of the United States.