The Gallery of Cornelis Van der Geest by Willem Van Haecht, 1628. Recorded on March 20, 2024
Welcome back to the Prada Museum we’re here again with our weekly session in English on the social media programming it’s a project supported by American Friends of the Prada Museum and we are very uh pleased today to have a special session with Alejandra Vergara the senior curator of Flemish painting
Who’s going to speak to us today about a painting that’s here on Loan in the beautiful Central gallery of the museum thank you Christina I’m so glad to be here with you in the museum with Bernardo also who’s filming us and the reason why we’re doing this is because
The Reuben’s house a museum in ANP the museum that’s closest to Ruben’s life has been generous enough to lend us this picture for two years their clothes for renovation and they gave us this extended loan and this is a very well-known painting for those of us who study Flemish paintings it’s called the
Art gallery of corneli V deres that’s the name of the man who owned this collection of pictures and it was painted by a fairly little known painter villan vanh the picture is amazing it depicts a fictional visit by the rulers of the Southern or Spanish Netherlands
In the city of ANP these two people isenia sister of the king of Spain who governed as Sovereign princes the Spanish or Southern Netherlands what now Belgium and her husband and cousin Albert they’re visiting a collection owned by a man called corneli vanderest it’s this guy over here
And the painter has turned this visit into an homage to the collecting of Flemish paintings and that’s really why we wanted so badly to have this that’s what we are look at the painting and look at the gallery it’s basically the same thing the idea of painting collections of paintings first came up
In Anor around 1600 16005 so the idea that this is something worthy of being painted and homage to the collecting of art it’s a very flamish thing it was invented in antor let’s see what we what we see here because it’s really fun we see as I said they two rulers
Isenia and Albert of Austria she’s holding a tiny little painting by Yan bral the elder flower piece reminding us that some of these paintings were made to be looked at that close up we see other paintings where they have magnifying glasses and so on we see a bunch of very well-known people here
This is rubben himself who is leaning over and explaining to his boss one of the two rulers of the time talking to him about the painting that he’s kind of holding or this just to his left this virgin and Child by Quinton mediz the man who’s actually pointing to
The painting is Again The Collector corneli vanderest look at his left arm he’s kind of bringing it to his chest as if saying this is very dear to my heart vanderest is saying by making this picture the protagonist of the painting that this is his favorite painter if you
Look at what’s hanging here we have more paintings by Quinton Miz and rubben than by any other artist so those are in the opinion of this group of elite collectors the two leading painters from the city of Anor we have other important people we have Anthony van djk it’s fun
To have all these people here because we have so many paintings in this Gallery made by these painters and collected by these people this is Anthony van djk looking older than he would have looked in 1615 when these two people visited this collection the painting is actually
Made 13 years later 1628 and it visitors that came at different times look at this man here he’s ladislav Vasa Prince and future king of Poland he’s the only one that hasn’t had to take his hat off in the presence of the rulers because he is also a monarch himself
From a royal family it’s really fun to look at all these pictures first of all the fact that collections are mainly of paintings at this time until about 50 years earlier you would have found natural objects objects less paintings and more objects collecting what’s a little bit different it’s now moving
Towards the collecting of Art and in that way this is a very clear precedent of what we’ve done in modern museums nowadays that we have a lot of very famous paintings I’ll note a couple of them this is an Adam Alzheimer picture it’s it tells an ancient mythological story that’s especially
Interesting for us because the original it’s most likely a painting that’s now in the pr in another story two one story up from where we are right now most most likely what happened is that Ruben the painter purchased it from vanderest when he died and then Philip IV of Spain we
Know bought it from Ruben’s heirs when Ruben died so that’s why it’s in the museum now another fascinating picture this is a woman at her at her bath or toilet it’s usually called it’s a picture by Yan vanik who was a Mythic painter from the 1430s 40s 50s the
Painting doesn’t exist anymore there’s a copy of the fog in Harvard and in in Cambridge Massachusetts and then we know it from this this is probably much bigger than it was originally but John vanik was mythical figure every artist wanted to be his heir to follow in his
Footsteps come down here if you can these are also references to other mythical painters in the past this is Alexander the Great accompanying his painter of pellis as he paints a woman on her C on his canvas this is another way of saying there’s a genealogy of Penny it includes aelis it includes
Vanik it includes Med it includes ruin and vanik this down here is the only picture signed in this whole big painting JV height that’s a signature by the artist who made all of these things it’s interesting that he must think this is the most important painting in here it’s
In the center and it has its signature the only one that does if you want to learn about how things were framed how things were exhibited at the time these paintings are fascinating notice for example two things two of these paintings have curtains these could have been drawn over the
Painting and maybe to protect them from the Sun maybe simply so the collector would invite a friend and say look what I have and open it rather theatrically uh you can see it here and here there may be some other that I’m missing another interesting thing that I
Find here some of these pictures that he’s were produced on the wall have little squares I think we see it here maybe but not do you see it here you see those little lines drawn in pencil maybe down over here as well that’s a little grid that the painter has used in order
To to keep their proportions you know every and every Square he could reproduce what was in the bigger Square in the original painting and therefore he made sure that this reduced copy of an original painting owned by this man looked kind of like the original we can see Chinese porcelain that was being
Imported into Europe drawings shell interesting natural objects these are remainders of an older way of collecting move to the right if you can move over here I just want to show you some of these people this is France sniders the great animal painter friend and collaborator of Ruin there’s a
Beautiful portrait of him by Anthony van djk also in this painting as we saw which is now in the frck collection this is based on that portrait this is vilden an important landscape painter who painted landscape backgrounds in many Ruben’s paintings I wanted to point to something before we
Finish um this man here Nicholas rockox was one of the leading one of the members of elite Society in anour leading patron of the Arts he was responsible for commissioning from rubben something that we have just across the hall here from this painting that big Adoration of the Magi and come
Over here also at another if you can I just showed you a Port of sniders we have a picture here painted by sniders in collaboration with rubben this big painting that mixes game and uh kind of heroic figures so again and to finish um you know what we have in that beautiful
Gallery of paintings is sorry kind of anom two people who decided this was of great importance they are the closest museum to reuin we have the largest collection of ru in the world with 991 or 92 paintings depending on attributions this kind of links the two of us and again we
Wanted to do this Instagram to inform people about a fascinating painting to pay homage to Flemish painting in general but also to thank the Ruben’s House Museum and anour for this great loan so thank you very much Alejandra thank you Christina that we can see how that painting reflects also we see live
Here so it’s different layers of together and also these these this royal family who collected all these Ruben paintings and all these other paintings in the she is she’s a part of that family so we’re very closely linked to the history of Flemish paintings that’s
Right thank you we know that the pr is so important in FL flish painting and sometimes we don’t know that necessarily as as visitors that come for the first time so thank you very much and thank you all for being with us again today and we will see you again next week
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