Cover of the publication “Epistolario del Archivo Madrazo en el Museo del Prado II”. Published by: Museo del Prado and FMCMP. © de la reproducción fotográfica: Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson, 2022. Autor de la fotografía: Kike Llamas.

Interior of “Epistolario del Archivo Madrazo en el Museo del Prado II”. Published by: Museo del Prado and FMCMP. © de la reproducción fotográfica: Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson, 20022. Autor de la fotografía: Kike LLamas.

Epistolario del Archivo Madrazo en el Museo del Prado. II
Cartas de Federico, Pedro, Fernando, Luis y Juan de Madrazo, Eugenio de Ochoa e Isidoro Gil

Joint publication by the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson the Prado Museum

The letters belong to the private archive of the Madrazo family, whose acquisition in 2012 provided the Museo del Prado with one of the richest and largest collections of letters in Spain previously in private hands. This volume is a continuation of the first one, published in 2017, also with the patronage of the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson, which brought together 383 letters written by Fortuny, his wife Cecilia de Madrazo, his brothers-in-law Ricardo and Raimundo, and his sister-in-law Isabel.

The second volume is entitled Epistolario del Archivo Madrazo en el Museo del Prado. II. Cartas de Federico, Pedro, Fernando, Luis y Juan de Madrazo, Eugenio de Ochoa e Isidoro Gil. Edited by Pedro J. Martínez Plaza of the Prado’s Nineteenth-Century Painting Department, it contains 389 letters written by Federico de Madrazo, four of his brothers (Pedro, Fernando, Juan and Luis), and his brothers-in-law Eugenio de Ochoa and Isidoro Gil, husbands of Carlota and Cecilia de Madrazo, respectively. The letters date from the period 1837–1889 and are mainly addressed to Federico and Luis, whose personal archives, together with that of their father José, form the bulk of the Madrazo Archive.

The respective authors occupied an important position in Spanish cultural circles throughout most of the nineteenth century, with special connections to painting, architecture, archaeology and literature. The letters therefore offer an uninterrupted source of knowledge on these disciplines and constitute a valuable repository for the study of social networks and practices, collecting and the art market, the image of Spain and Spanish things abroad, and the country’s political development.

The ninety-three letters by Luis de Madrazo (1825–1897), the other painter of this generation in the family, and of Juan de Madrazo (1829–1880), a leading architect in Isabelline Madrid, highlight the brothers’ close connections with the latest developments in Europe and furnish interesting information about some of their works. For example, Juan’s letters offer many details about the restoration of the cathedral in León and other projects he undertook. Those of Pedro de Madrazo (1816–1898) shed light on the production of the catalogues for the Museo del Prado and many of his other studies. Lastly, the letters of Isidoro Gil y Baus (1814–1866), a well-known Spanish Romantic dramatist, tell us something about other scholarship artists in Rome, and those of Fernando de Madrazo (1820–1895) allow us to delve into the Madrazo family’s financial enterprises.

Epistolario del Archivo Madrazo en el Museo del Prado (II). Cartas de Federico, Pedro, Fernando, Luis y Juan de Madrazo, Eugenio de Ochoa e Isidoro Gil was jointly published by the Museo del Prado and the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson in 2022. It was edited by Pedro J. Martínez Plaza, museum technician in the Nineteenth-Century Painting Department at the Museo del Prado, and it contains an introduction by Javier Barón, chief curator of nineteenth-century painting at the Prado. The design is by María José Subiela.