The Museo Nacional del Prado introduces new protagonists in the second edition of its thematic route “The Female Perspective”

The Museum is continuing with this exhibition project and also expanding it with an ambitious programme of activities that locate the Prado among the pioneering institutions which are giving visibility to the role of women in art, highlighting the contribution of more women art patrons to its collections.

After the exceptionally positive reception to “The Female Perspective” thematic route (December 2022 to April 22023), which has become a reference point for other museums and collections, the Museo del Prado is presenting a second edition (from today until 8 September). It invites us to celebrate the collecting activities of different women from European royal dynasties who made key contributions to enlarging and enhancing the former Spanish royal collection and thus the present-day Museum.

Following a chronological ordering, the first route focused on women whose activities spanned the years 1451 to 1633, from the birth of Isabella the Catholic to the death of Isabel Clara Eugenia. For this second edition the route moves forward in time with the aim of focusing on new female patrons of art, on this occasion spanning the period from Elizabeth of Bourbon to Maria Anna of Neuburg, between 1602 and 1700. A particularly outstanding figure is Queen Christina of Sweden, whose collecting activities account for the presence of the most important group of classical sculptures in the Museo Nacional del Prado, in addition to fundamental and outstanding paintings in the collection such as Dürer’s panels of Adam and Eve.

The Museum’s firm commitment to raising the visibility of the role of women in art and to singling out the contribution of these patrons is reflected in the publication of a book to accompany this new thematic route, four audiovisual features co-produced with La Caixa Forum +, and an ambitious programme of associated activities. They include guided tours with the curator of the route, associated material with digital content, guides for families, a teacher training course, a film cycle, a dance work and a new edit-a-thon.

The continuity and transversal participation of the Museum’s different departments in the project mean that it can be compared to initiatives of a similar type organised by other institutions, such as the Rijksmuseum (Women of the Rijksmuseum) and the National Portrait Gallery (Reframing narratives), while demonstrating the Prado’s firm commitment to recounting history in a broader way and to presenting it from a more inclusive viewpoint. The result is to create new accounts in which women are the protagonists in their own right, as in the present case: artistic promoters and patrons, women who lay behind the foundation of the Museo del Prado, who made a decisive contribution to forming its collections and who are now rightly celebrated by the Museum through this project.

New audiovisual features for the documentary series Masterpieces of the Prado and its women artistic promoters

One of the principal contributions to this thematic route are the four audiovisual features, each lasting 30 minutes, co-produced with La Caixa Forum +, which are included in the documentary series Masterpieces of the Prado and its women artistic promoters that was launched with the previous edition. On this occasion the audiovisuals focus on the figures of Christina of Sweden, Elizabeth of Bourbon, Maria Anna of Austria and Maria Anna of Neuburg. They involve the participation of curators at the Museo Nacional del Prado as well as academic researchers from Spain and elsewhere. These features constitute an extremely valuable audiovisual resource for knowledge transfer and the dissemination of academic information.