ENGLISH TRANSLATION

PALACE HISTORY

CONSTRUCTION

or many years site of the Ministry of the Army, previously known as the Ministry of War and now the Headquarters of the Army, the Palace of Buenavista has had a long and eventful history.

Located in the heart of the Villa y Corte, the building and gardens stand on sloping ground that extends along Alcalá Street until it meets the Plaza de Cibeles. 16th century records exist of the palace grounds, as documented by Joaquín Martínez Friera in his book on the building (1943:24), the passionate prose of which occasionally masks the work’s undeniable historical rigour. Through this work, we know that in the mid-15th century there already existed on what was known as the Altillo de Buenavista a large building that belonged to Gaspar de Quiroga, at the time archbishop of Toledo and later cardinal, who enjoyed the extraordinary esteem of King Philip II. The prelate’s long stays in Naples on behalf of the king and the monarch’s difficulties in residing at the Court due to the work being carried out on the former Alcázar, may have been what inspired Gaspar de Quiroga to give the building to the king, who quickly turned it into a sort of country house, making use of its location on the outskirts of the capital.

The main entrance was on the west side, the closest to the urban centre, on what was then known as the Buenavista del Rey Street, which began at Barquillo Street. It was precisely at this residence that Philip II stayed lengthy periods with his fourth and last wife, Anne of Austria, who was fond of the calm location, according to Francisco Baztán (1959:203). When the queen died in 1580, the residence was then inhabited by the king’s sister and mother-in-law, Mary of Austria, widow of the German Emperor Maximilian II, until, upon the death of the ‘Prudent King’, she retired to the Descalzas Reales Monastery, where she died in 1603.

Later, the ‘Royal Houses of Buenavista’ were used by Philip III when he came to Madrid from Valladolid, where the Court had been located from 1601 to 1605. The monarch enlarged the property, just as his father had done, through the purchase of various neighbouring houses and gardens. The royal possession then fell into disuse, as Phillip III preferred El Pardo, El Escorial and Aranjuez for his residences, until on 2nd August 1609 Buenavista passed into the hands of the Duke of Francavilla, Diego de Silva y Mendoza. Upon the duke’s death in 1630, the palace was inherited by his son, Rodrigo Sarmiento de Silva de Villandrando y de la Cerda, Duke of Híjar, who embellished and considerably enlarged the area of the property through the purchase in 1662 of the well-known ‘garden of the Co-Magistrate Juan Fernández’. This new area, very much connected to poetic works of the 17th century and to which the famous Tirso de Molina dedicated a comedy (La huerta de Juan Fernández), had been thought to be located in the surroundings of the present-day Plaza de la Lealtad, until Professor Lopezosa Aparicio (1996:53) identified it with the gardens of the present Headquarters of the Army.

These country houses, like the neighbouring gardens of the Admiralty of Castile, after which the former street of Escurial Alta is now named, were clear examples of the type of house-with-garden that the nobility of the Villa y Corte had been building for years in the Prado de Recoletos as smaller scale imitations of such houses in Italy.

After having enjoyed Buenavista for almost a century, in 1744, the ducal house of Híjar was forced, for judicial problems, to cede ownership of the palace and gardens to the Real Congregación de San Ignacio de Loyola, also known as that of the Vizcaínos, which owned the property until 1753. In this year, the area corresponding to the palace was sold to Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, Marquis of the Ensenada and omnipotent minister of Philip V, during whose reign he managed to occupy the posts of Minister of War, Navy, the Indies and Internal Revenue. In 1754, however, he was removed to Granada, and thus had very little time to enjoy his new Madrid property.

Buenavista once more became property of the Crown through Queen Elisabeth Farnese, who, as widow of the first Spanish Bourbon and once her son Charles III was on the throne,

Altillo de Buenavista, by Pedro Teixeira (Topographia de la villa de Madrid, 1656).

abandoned her voluntary isolation in the palace of Riofrío, near Segovia, and returned to Madrid. With the intention of maintaining her independence by residing outside of the Royal Palace, and seeing that the marquis of the Ensenada’s former house was uninhabited, she commissioned the architects Ventura Rodríguez and Virgilio Rabaglio to inspect the building. Following their report, she decided to buy the palace in 1759 for a sum of more than two million reales de vellón and then embellished it with her valuable collection of paintings, residing there until her death on 10th July 1766.

After the queen’s death, the property passed to Fernando de Silva y Álvarez de Toledo, 12th Duke of Alba, who acquired it in 1768 upon the execution of the queen’s will for 1.7 million reales de vellón. The duke enlarged the estate by purchasing some of the contiguous properties. It was perhaps at this time that the duke commissioned Ventura Rodríguez (1717-1785) to design the garden and build a cottage in the area that opened to Alcalá Street; this plan is, without doubt, the drawing that is in the Biblioteca Nacional (Barcia nº 1678), and which is signed by the Madrid-born architect on 14th September 1770. In this plan, the palace, cottage and garden make excellent use of the sloping ground toward Alcalá Street, while the ground’s irregularity is relieved by a colonnade; no trees are planted to keep unobstructed the ‘delicious views from the balconies of the mentioned palace, which in our opinion,’ stated Ponz in 1793, ‘are the most charming and picturesque in Madrid, better even than the Royal

Palace,’ presenting ‘above all the Retiro in a singular way’. Furthermore, this plan is of great interest because it is the only one in existence that shows the interior layout of the old building.

In 1770, however, the duke of Huéscar, only son and heir to the duke of Alba, died, and in 1776 the duke of Alba decided to demolish the old building of Buenavista to build a more modern structure more in keeping with the social standing of its owner and his young granddaughter María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva-Álvarez de Toledo y Silva-Bazán, the 13th Duchess of Alba, as well as being the Duchess of Montoro, of Huéscar and of Sanlúcar la Mayor, Countess Duchess of Olivares, Marquise of Carpio and Countess of Monterrey and of Lerín, among other numerous titles. The death of the noble grandfather in November of the same year, before work on demolishing the old structures had begun, meant that it was the duchess, as the new heiress, who undertook the demolishment of the entire old house and established the conditions for the new palace along with her husband, José María Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga, Duke of Medina Sidonia and of Montalvo and Marquis of Villafranca.

It was the Duchess Cayetana who strove to make this building her foremost residence, as well as the most elegant palace of the Villa y Corte, a fitting home not only for the extraordinary collection of paintings of the House of Alba, but also for the collection of her noble husband. It was precisely in relation to this art collection that Valentín Carderera spoke in 1841, in the presence of Baron Taylor, of the palace fire and ‘the irreplaceable

Buenavista, by Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros (Plano topographico de la Villa y Corte de Madrid, 1769).

View of the Cibeles Fountain and Palace of Buenavista (1836, Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Museo de Historia de Madrid).

loss of the Study that contained the Japanese curiosities collected at the end of the 18th century by the Duchess of Alba.’

The commission for the project of the new and sumptuous building that the duchess desired was given in 1777 to the French architect Juan Pedro Arnal (1735-1805), who at the end of the 18th century was placed alongside Ventura Rodríguez, Francisco Sabatini and Juan de Villanueva as being among the foremost names in Spanish architecture by the Baron Jean-François de Bourgoing. Arnal, whose mother was French, received his early education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Toulouse and continued his studies at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, where he won several awards as a student, in 1763 and 1766 before becoming an academic of merit and student professor. He joined the teaching staff in 1774 and became the favourite architect of many of the foremost nobles of the Villa y Corte. His unstoppable rise within the Royal Academy took him to the post of deputy of Architecture of the institution in September 1774. Two years later, the Academy gave him joint responsibility, together with Juan de Villanueva, of drawing up the plans for the palace complex of the Alhambra in Granada and the Cathedral of Cordoba, under the supervision of José de Hermosilla. He later replaced Ventura Rodríguez as director of Architecture in 1785 and established the Architectural Commission, which has overseen all public works carried out in Spain ever since. He was also responsible for building a number of projects that were the object of a recent detailed study by Carlos Sambricio (1973:299-318 and 1986:93108). Among the buildings he raised in Madrid were the Royal Printing House of 1783, which is no longer extant, and the Royal Post House of 1795, which has survived in adulterated form. This was a one storey building built on a triangular plan with an elegant portico lined with Ionic columns. However, neither his figure nor the influence exerted by his theoretical endeavours on the architecture of his contemporaries in Spain have been fully appreciated until now. The reason may be found in the surprising nature of his work, in evolving from the orthodoxy of Neoclassicism as seen in his colleague Juan de Villanueva, to

Arc lamp in the palace gardens (La Ilustración Española y Americana, 1882).

the refined academism of the period prior to Francisco Sabatini.

Arnal’s original project for the palace is known through two plans reproduced by Martínez Friera (1943:291,298), which were conserved in the archive of the Ducal House of Alba until their destruction in the Spanish Civil War. The new building, conceived in the style of a great palace with all of the rigour and sobriety of the reigning neoclassical architecture of the period, as the already mentioned Sambricio carefully notes (1986:305-306), changed the location of the main façade from the west to the north side, to the street known as Emperatriz, later Duque de Alba and now vanished, which was located in the vicinity of the present Barquillo Street. Construction was begun in 1777, as indicated by the inscription carved in an ashlar located in the passageway between the two courtyards of the palace (+ / EN EL AÑO DE / MDCCLXXVII / SE PRINCIPIÓ ESTA / OBRA). It seems that a monumental entrance was built on Emperatriz Street, with a wrought iron gate and even a part of the building itself with the main stairs, a magnificent oratory and other rooms, all under the direction of Arnal until 1783, and later under the supervision of Claude Billard de Bellisard, a French architect who had studied at the Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid.

Work was stopped, however, after two dreadful fires destroyed almost all of what had already been built, especially on the north side. The first of the fires occurred in September 1795 and, it seems, showed all the signs of having been intentional. Work was then continued to restore the building and to transform the two small courtyards into one as planned by Arnal. Work was also begun on bolstering the south façade, which over time would become the main façade, as it looked toward Alcalá Street, already by then one of the most important of the Villa y Corte. The second fire took place in 1796 and must also have been suspicious because, according to Chantal Gastinel-Coural (1990:75), the French architect was slanderously accused of complicity and even detained, and then died in prison on 9th August 1796, according to Yves Bottineau (1986:358). This account,

Plan of the palace and gardens in 1825 (Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica, Madrid). however, must be viewed with a measure of scepticism, given that other sources state that Billard de Bellisard did not die until 3rd December 1797, without any mention whatsoever of his having been deprived of his liberty.

Arnal’s plans called for the palace to be bordered by gardens on the east, south and west sides, embellished by different fountains, including one of porphyry, as if it were ‘a mansion fit for a monarch’, according to Pascual Madoz (1848:241242). And, as the abbot Antonio Ponz (1793:V,184) wrote in the century before Madoz, it would indeed have been so if one took into account that ‘the east façade, which looked towards Recoletos, was supposed to be 402 feet horizontally, or two thirds longer than the present building.’ Ponz also noted that the south side facing Alcalá Street was to be 203 feet long, while the west, 193 feet, and the building’s height, 64 and one half feet. lt was, therefore, of truly considerable size, which Mesonero Romanos (1854:344) estimated to be almost half a million square feet.

In this final period of the 18th century, the initial pictorial decoration of the ceilings of the halls may have been carried out, although unfortunately, not many references remain of these. Through the already mentioned article by Gastinel-Coural, however, it is known that the Frenchman Jean-Démosthène Dugourc or Dugoure (Versailles, 1749- Paris, 1852), one of the most original and prolific decorators of the French Neoclassical style, had made some works for the Madrid’s palace of La Moncloa in 1790, also property of the duchess of Alba since 1784, where he painted some rhomboidal panels and various galleries of birds and flowers, all in the classical aesthetics of the time. Having become one of the principal figures in the diffusion of decoration in the Greek, or

to be more precise, Etruscan style, he worked on various occasions in Russia, Great Britain and Switzerland, until returning to Spain on 26th April 1800. The article also indicates that he became the ‘first architect of the King of Spain and the Prince of Peace,’ while later, in 1808, he was one of the closest artistic collaborators of Joseph Bonaparte, until his return to France in 1813, having participated in 1809 in the renovation of the ornamentation of the palace of La Moncloa with the creation of some representations of the muses. It would not seem strange, therefore, for him to have participated in the decoration of the Palace of Buenavista, despite no documentation existing to confirm this.

On the other hand, there are records of the work of the likewise Frenchman François Grognard (Lyon, 1748-Paris, 1825), son of a local silk producer who was trained in drawing flowers for the famous textiles produced in his native city. He later spent time in Italy, where he developed a keen interest in archaeological discoveries. Then, as Isabel Bonora has stated (2004:261,364-365), he was in the service of the royal courts of Saint Petersburg and Warsaw, and arrived in Madrid in August 1787, entering into contact with the royal family and various members of the Spanish nobility. This contact is evident in the drawings made in 1790 for the decoration (which was never realized) of the cabinet de parade, or summer apartment, that the duchess of Alba had built in the Palace of Buenavista. 19 known watercolour sketches of ornamental projects, feather-brushed in brown ink on carbon paper with watercolour highlights, are preserved in the Musée des Arts Décortatifs in Paris. Many of these are inspired by the ancient paintings of Herculaneum and the Baths of Titus, with references also to Raphael’s celebrated logias in the Vatican, all fruit of his taste for antiquity. The walls of the chambers, as well as the dressing room that forms part of the same group, appear decorated with friezes and lunettes in the style of classical Greek ceramics with red figures, while in front of a chimney, a Greek vase of this same type is used for the first time as a decorative element in and of itself, evoking the ancient ceramics, of forms both authentic and reinvented, found in the decoration to create an ideal atmosphere in the Greek style.

Grognard remained in Madrid, except for a few trips to his native France, before being expelled on 25th February 1793 upon the execution of Louis XVI. During this time, he was persistent in his efforts to get the duchess of Alba to commission him with the furnishing of the Palace of Buenavista; the design of a bed preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional may correspond to him.

Returning to the building’s history, once the serious consequences of the two fires were overcome, the Duchess Cayetana decided to continue with construction, but did so with considerable slowness after her husband’s death in 1796 and as the result of her own illness, which was to claim her life in 1802. Reality and fiction become entwined in this last episode, with the possibility of her being poisoned by no less than Queen Maria Luisa, and Godoy. This same Godoy (to whom in about 1800 the duchess had given the famous painting Venus of the Mirror, painted by Velázquez during his second trip to Italy and which had formed part of the Alba collection for many years, having been acquired by the marquis of Carpio) was to receive more than 20 paintings of great value from the Duchess Cayetana in her last will and testimony.

Because the duchess died without leaving offspring, the palace was left as inheritance to several of her most direct employees and to two of the doctors who had cared for her in her illness. There is documented evidence that the building, which at that time was rectangular in shape, was still uninhabitable because much of it was yet to be completed. Problems arising from the execution of the will forced the heirs to stop construction work as well as even the smallest tasks of conservation, and so the palace was put up for sale, having been appraised at more than nine million reales.

Some years later, on 24th February 1807, the City Council of Madrid considered purchasing Buenavista to give it to Manuel Godoy, Prince of Peace, who had recently been named chief admiral, and whose earlier intentions to possess the building were known. And so this was done, the following month, for a sum of nine million reales, with the purchase and later gift being formalised in May. Godoy immediately began certain renovations to make the building suitable as a personal residence, as well as for the headquarters of the Council of the Admiralty.

It is very possible, as Martínez Friera claims (1943:367), that these plans corresponded to the grandiose project known by way of a wooden model that the architects Fernando Chueca Goitia and Carlos de Miguel found among the possessions of the dukes of Sueca in the Palace of Boadilla del Monte (Madrid) and which, after having been restored and exhibited at the Real Academia de Belles Artes de San Fernando on the occasion of the publication of a book, was then unfortunately destroyed in the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura in Madrid during the Civil War. At first, both architects (still young students at the time) identified the model as one built by Ventura Rodríguez for the palace

desired by the Duchess Cayetana. Some time later, however, after establishing that both the attribution of the project to Ventura Rodríguez, as well as its supposed identification with the Palace of Buenavista were totally mistaken, Chueca never again wished to recall the earlier publication, despite its limited edition and reduced readership. It seems rather more logical to suppose that the model corresponds to the large building desired by Godoy, who had married the countess of Chinchón, daughter of the Infante Don Luis of Bourbon and who was later buried in the chapel of the palace that her father had built in Boadilla.

Work on Buenavista was carried out with great speed, with some rooms being finished and furnished by 1808, a year in which various documents make reference to the pictorial decoration of some halls. Indeed, on 4th July 1808, a group of Spanish painters presented a petition to the board in charge of payments (A.H.N. Hacienda, leg. 3580) stating that, while they had delivered their requests for payment to Godoy some time ago, and had received some payment, the total amount was still to be paid, and they still had to maintain their studios and workers. Among the claimants were Juan Arcembuch, Eugenio Alonso, Diego Herranz, Andrés de la Guía, Andrés del Peral, Julián Gallegos, Dámaso López, Juan Gálvez, Juan de Mata Duque and Domingo Dalli, thereby providing a clue as to who the possible authors were of the decorations and ornamentation of the palace being carried out at the time.

Of all these decorators, the most important was Juan Gálvez (d. 1847), collaborator of the Italian Luis Yappelli on different works at El Escorial, El Pardo and Aranjuez, and also of Manuel Muñoz de Ugena, having been a student and executor of the will of the painter Mariano Salvador Maella. There is specific documentation of his participation in the decoration of the Palace of El Pardo in 1825 and that he became a court painter, academic of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, and general director of that institution in 1838. Another notable figure was Juan de Mata Duque y López (1772-1821), from Toledo, assistant to the better known Vicente Gómez and who, as a court painter from 1794 onwards, intervened in the ornamentation of several royal sites, having also collaborated with Dámaso López (Morales, 1994:276-282).

Godoy, however, never got to reside in the Palace of Buenavista, because the ‘mutiny of Aranjuez’ not only provoked the abdication of King Charles IV, but also caused his own fall in March of 1808. All of Godoy’s possessions were seized as a precautionary measure, including the palace, which became the property of the State and did not return to the City Council of Madrid, despite the efforts made by the councillors to recover it.

From then on, the building experienced the most diverse fates. First of all, there was the notable but unsuccessful attempt to transform it into the Museo Josefino de Pintura, the founding decree of which was signed by Joseph Bonaparte on 21st December 1809. Some historians believe that it was at this time, and not earlier, that the southern façade of the building was embellished with a frontispiece placed atop four Corinthian columns, thus transforming into the main body, open to the garden according to Arnal’s original project, what until then had been the building’s back. But this project by Joseph Bonaparte was not put into practice, because the difficulties in adapting the building for use as a museum were too great.

Some years later, during a session held on 15th June 1814, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando considered the possibility of making use of Buenavista as a place to install its gallery of paintings, and a few days later formally solicited the King Ferdinand VII for its cession. On 4th July, a royal decree confirmed the handing over of the palace, ‘with all of the belongings, resources, furniture and fittings that are found in it,’ to the mentioned Real Academia and that, in addition to being its headquarters, the palace would also house a gallery of paintings, statues and architectural plans to which Ferdinand VII promised to give some pieces from the royal collections. The actual presenting of the palace to the institution took place on 12th July, in the presence of the duke of San Carlos, patron of the academy.

The project of installing at Buenavista what was to be called the Museo Fernandino corresponded to plans produced in all haste by the architect Antonio López Aguado, first as a sketch on 27th July, and then definitively (Estampas, Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid) on 16th September of the same year of 1814. The most notable feature of this project was the creation of a sizable ramp that allowed for more comfortable access to the building from Alcalá Street, as well as a side access on Barquillo Street, exactly in front of the then newly created Plaza del Rey.

As Valentín de Sambricio (1942:132146) has extensively studied, however, the lamentable state of the palace, which had fallen into ruin in some areas, led the institution to desist in its designs for the painting gallery, given the elevated sums that were necessary to renovate the building. The institution thus solicited the monarch to look for another building that would not entail such costs. A royal decree of 14th August states that Ferdinand VII accepted the renouncement and expressed his desire to find another site in better conditions.

Fire in the Palace of Buenavista (La Ilustración Española y Americana, 12-XII-1882).

Nonetheless, Sambricio speculates that while this may have been the official view, the real reason for not installing the Museo Fernandino in the Palace of Buenavista was another altogether. It seems that the Royal and Supreme Council of Castile was not in favour of the idea, but rather, on the contrary, recommended to the monarch that the future museum house only paintings belonging to the Crown, and that a better location for the museum would be at the former Gabinete de Ciencias Naturales, builded by Juan de Villanueva on the Paseo del Prado, and where ultimately the Museo Real de Pinturas was inaugurated on 19th November 1819. Nonetheless, to avoid the further ruin of the building raised by Arnal, the Real Academia decided, as long as it could count with economic assistance from the Crown, to continue tending to its conservation and did so for some months.

Buenavista was then witness to other events, some now related to the military and linked to the Ministry of War. Thus, for example, on 8th March 1816 the Real Museo Militar was moved to the palace, during renovations on its small, poorly equipped space in its former location in the Parque de Monteleón, scene of the heroic events of 2nd May 1808. The twill by an anonymous artist was painted at this time, in about 1816, and is now preserved in the Museo de Historia de Madrid (I.N. nº 1474). In this painting, one can see, in addition to the building, a company of soldiers in perfect formation beside the statue of the goddess Cybele. At this time, the palace underwent a considerable transformation, with the main façade now definitively facing Alcalá Street, and construction begun on the present-day grand staircase.

In 1827, the building housed the then separate Real Museo Militar de

Artillería and the Museo del Real Cuerpo de Ingenieros in several rooms on the ground floor; these two museums even had separate entrances. The first also contained the Real Gabinete de Modelos Geométricos Topográficos for which, between 1829 and 1830, its director, the lieutenant colonel León Gil de Palacio, made the excellent model better known as the Modelo de Madrid, which is now in the Museo de Historia de Madrid.

In the same museum there is a painting (I.N. nº 6572) realized in 1836 by José María Avrial, in which it is possible to see the condition of the palace. In this painting, it is also possible to view the structure built in the time of Ferdinand VII alongside Alcalá Street, over the grounds of the former garden of the Co-Magistrate Juan Fernández. The building, which never became property of the Army, was initially used by the Inspección de Milicias until 1847 and then by the Dirección de Infantería until 1869, serving different functions over the years. Until 1870, when it was badly damaged in a fire, the building was known as Presidencia after having served from 1855 to 1856 as the seat of the Council of Ministries. After the fire, it was agreed to demolish the building and part of its area was integrated into the present garden, while another part was ceded to improve the street plan of the surrounding area.

Furthermore, a regiment was added to the artillery museum with all of its trappings, giving Buenavista the popular name of Real Parque de Artillería. The appearance of the building at that time is visible in the mentioned model by Gil de Palacio: it had a rectangular plan built around a small central courtyard and preceded by an abrupt terrain that sloped toward Alcalá Street. What is most striking, however, in relation to its present image, is that not one single tree interrupted the view of the building from the outside, as if wishing to respect the privileged views that had already been noted in Ventura Rodríguez’ earlier project.

In 1841, the palace was fitted out as the official residence of General Baldomero Espartero, Duke of Victory and Regent of the Kingdom, until his flight to England in 1843. In addition to ordering the Museo de Artillería to be moved to the wing corresponding to the Hall of the Kingdoms in the old Royal Palace of Buen Retiro, Espartero undertook various works of importance, above all, related to interior decoration. Later, the grounds were given certain defensive fortifications due to the continued political instability, which did not stop the building from serving as temporary lodgings in 1843 to the Turkish ambassador, Fuad-Effendi, during the festivities organized upon the coming of age of Queen Isabella II. It was also decided at this time to locate the headquarters of the artillery and engineering in what had been the regent’s quarters, also making use of the rooms on the ground floor once occupied by the Museo de Artillería.

In 1846, the palace became the seat of the Ministry of War, which had been created in 1840 as a continuation of the Secretariat of War set up in 1759, and installed since then, first in the so-called Casa de los Ministerios on Bailén Street and later, provisionally, in the former Dominican Convent of Santo Tomás on Atocha Street. Little by little, the various departments closely related to the military ministry began to take up residence on the main floor of Buenavista, until the space became overly crowded, especially after the chiefs of staff of the cavalry were moved to the ground floor. For this reason, in 1854, the second floor was fixed up and a section of it was used to house more of the Ministry’s departments. A new entrance was also made in the north façade, which is the one that now opens to the small courtyard. From this moment onwards, various changes in location of these departments were made between the ground floor and the two upper ones of the building’s original structure. The then main entrance on Alcalá Street was also fixed up and a large iron gate was placed there.

It was General Prim, acting as President of the Council of Ministries and after 1868, as Minister of War and therefore in residence at Buenavista, who began a considerable renovation of the building on 16th November 1869, in response to the incessant expansion of the administrative organs of the ministry. The construction work was carried out between 1870 and 1873 according to the project elaborated by the brigadier of Ingenieros, José María Aparici y Biedma, with the collaboration of the likewise military engineers, Ramón Calvo and Luis Martín del Yerro. Work was above all made on enlarging the west and north wings of the building, which, along with the east wing (the lengthening of which had already begun in April of 1861) created space for the present large courtyard, as well as the new, interior divisions made in the same style and proportions. In the plans as in reality, however, the difference in thickness between the original walls as they meet the newly built ones is perfectly visible. Records show that the elongation of the west wing was made between 1871 and 1874, with the north side thus being built between 1874 and 1875. The present entrance of this façade, framed by two lofty columns of solid, single piece granite, is of a marked Neoclassical style and despite bearing the date 1876, is from an earlier period, given that the building known as Presidencia, until its demolition in 1870, bore exactly the same façade. The structure and plaster-

ing of the façades were also modified, and the steep embankment that isolated the palace from Alcalá Street was dismantled with the demolishing of the old defensive walls. In their place, railing was introduced to border the garden and two small pavilions, composed of cellar, ground floor and roof, were built bordering Alcalá Street: one on the corner with the Plaza de Cibeles, originally for the minister’s recreation and which was occupied by the Junta Consultiva de Guerra after 1875 and the Dirección General de la Instrucción Militar in 1882; and the other, which still exists today, closer to Barquillo Street, which was built in 1872 as a guardhouse.

The publication in 1884 of the book Historia y descripción de la posesión titulada Palacio de Buena-Vista ó del Ministerio de la Guerra (Madrid, 1884), written by the already mentioned lieutenant colonel of Ingenieros, Luis Martín del Yerro y Villapecellín, perfectly details the evolution of this entire renovation process. He even indicates that at the time, the large courtyard was decorated with a fountain that had a circular granite basin and an allegorical marble statue in its centre, which remained there until the renovations made by General Varela in 1939.

During the time that General Martínez Campos was Minister of War (1881-1883) in the government presided over by Sagasta, a historical event took place in the palace with the instalment in May of 1882 of electrical wire, which replaced the old gas lamps installed in 1875, and thus was one of the first places in Madrid to have this novel system of lighting that then slowly spread to the rest of the capital. Concerning this event, the following was written in the pages of La Ilustración Española y Americana of 22nd June 1882: ‘In the early hours of the night, the lovely Alcalá Street presented a truly fantastic appearance, as seen from the streetlamp near Cibeles: ...to the right, the leafy park of the Ministry of War, serving as a splendid carpet to the Palace of Buenavista, whose trees and flowers emerged from the darkness of night as though wrapped in a gauze of enchanted clarity.’ To supply the energy for the 15 lamps that lit the façades, courtyards, main stairs and gardens (where the frame of one of these lamps still remains), the Ministry authorized the placement of Madrid’s first electrical station on its grounds. The functioning of this station was granted by a royal decree of 1st May of the same year to the Sociedad Española de Electricidad, run by the businessmen Dalmáu/Xifrá, who the following year would form the Sociedad Matritense de Electricidad and whose Buenavista plant was from then onwards identified with the unmistakable silhouette of its tall brick chimney.

The building, however, was lit in a much different way on 12th December 1882, when the area separating the two courtyards of the palace caught on fire and burned terribly for almost three days, causing the destruction of the two upper floors, used as a library and archives at that time. Work on repairing the significant damage was begun immediately.

Decades later, the building went through another series of changes during the period of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, at which time, in 1928, the Ministry of War became known as the Ministry of the Army. These renovations, however, were not as important as those carried out after the Civil War of 1936-1939, which aimed to repair the damage suffered during the war, especially in the final moments of the conflict. The renovations were carried out by General José Enrique Varela Iglesias (as indicated by an inscription on one of the walls of the large courtyard: ESTE EDIFICIO / SE RECONSTRUYÓ / SIENDO MINISTRO / EL GENERAL VARELA) and consisted in the reinforcing of the floors and roofs. The occasion was also used to add another floor, the third, following the plans of the commander of Ingenieros, José Laguna Fabia. The building was thus provided with greater space, although the addition also considerably marred the elegance and proportions of the building’s design, as the elegant pediment that crowns the façade was now weighed down by a new floor and roof.

A profound reorganization of the interior was also made, as new offices were installed on the different floors, marble floors were laid, and the walls were lined with Colmenar stone or wood. Renovations were also made on a series of details in tone with the building’s importance and function. Especially notable are the bronze and gilt copper elements, such as the doorknobs, the office bells, the bird-shaped wall lights in the corridors and the railings of the stairs, all of which are aesthetically in the Empire style. Some lovely yet simple stained glass windows, made at the Madrid workshops of Talleres Maumejean de Vidriería Artística and decorated with shields and military emblems, were placed in the skylights and windows of the main stairs. The majority of the best pieces of stained glass used in both private and official buildings throughout Spain and particularly in Madrid, had been made at this workshop since the end of the 19th century. The small chapel or oratory on the third floor was also remodelled at this time in a classical style, with stained glass windows from the above mentioned workshop depicting the apostles Peter and Paul in reverse of the usual order of traditional iconography, which can only be justified if one takes into account Paul’s early military experience.

THE A DJOI N I NG BU ILDI NGS

round Buenavista’s central structure, other buildings were built to house the different services that come with the administrative importance of a ministry.

In about 1848, some buildings of complex plan, with brick walls over a granite base, were built to the east of the palace, on a very irregular lot next to the Convent of San Pascual on the Paseo de Recoletos. Termed accessories or secondary in the abundant documentation of the construction work, they housed the minister’s escort as well as workshops, carriage houses and stables at the services of the different needs of the ministry and of the so-called Depósito de la Guerra. These structures were touched up in 1882 and then very much renovated in 1917 in order to house the seat of the Brigada Obrera Topográfica. In 1930 they were again remodelled, this time with a modern façade on the occasion of the installation there of the Servicio Geográfico y Cartográfico del Ejército, which remained at this location for various decades. In the middle of the last century, they were enlarged to bring them in line with the exterior aspect of the main building, and occupied by the Batallón del Ministerio and later, by the Regimiento Inmemorial del Rey.

In an agreement with the City Council of Madrid in 1866, the Ministry of War ceded a strip of land to allow the prolongation of Saúco Street, now Prim Street, up to the Paseo de Recoletos. In just compensation, between 1872 and 1874, the municipal body helped protect Buenavista on its border with the new city street with the installation of more than 50 metres of railings, the decoration of which is the same as that found on the railings of the garden on the Paseo de Recoletos.

Although the military engineer Martín del Yerro had already drawn up different construction plans in 1869 for this zone of the property to enlarge the built area along the north-south axis, it was not until 1875 that different structures were built on both extremes of this north side to serve as barracks for the Batallón de Escribientes y Ordenanzas. As planned by Martín del Yerro, they have cellars, ground floors and two levels, both of brick with granite bases, and each with a very similar rectangular floor plan, although oriented in different directions: the guardhouse stands in a north-south direction, with a narrow façade on Saúco Street (afterwards Prim); the other is oriented west-east, with some newly created gardens separating them. Records show that they were successively renovated in 1884, 1906, 1919, 1928 and 1933 for the different services that occupied them. In 1924, the present day iron gates that open to Prim Street were installed in order to give them greater visibility.

On the west side of the buildings, meanwhile, in the direction of Barquillo Street, on quite a lower level of ground and near the entrance that had been improved in 1849 with the construction of stairs to replace an earlier ramp, the same lieutenant colonel Martín del Yerro planned in 1877 a building that now occupies number 16 of the same street and which was finished five years later, with both dates engraved on the main entrance. It has an H-shaped layout with a small garden that is closed off by an iron railing in front of the central body, which has a carriage entrance. The building consists of an entresol, two floors and an attic, all in red brick, with fenced in areas and lines of limestone that create a well-considered two-toned use of materials. The corbels under the cornice of the upper section and those that support the decorative panels over the windows of the first floor are also of limestone. The Inspección de Sanidad, Sección de Aeronáutica, Vicariato General Castrense, Intervención and Intendencia were at first installed here.

Palace of Buenavista in 1884, by Luis Martín del Yerro.

THE GA R DENS

he lush gardens in front of the main façade of Buenavista have their origins in the efforts to level the steep slope that existed between the palace and Alcalá Street. Work was begun in April of 1870 and consisted of levelling the slope, although the entrances that had already been established for pedestrians and vehicles were maintained, especially the central stone stairs with four large resting areas and flanked by two rows of trees, some of which were ceded by the Real Patrimonio.

The plan for the garden, in which conifers contrast with the green tones of deciduous specimens, was realized by the already mentioned brigadier of Ingenieros, José María Aparici, with the assistance of the professional François Huet, who was the gardener of the Palace of Liria, property of the dukes of Alba on the Princesa Street in Madrid.

Lofty fir trees from the Caucasus, majestic cedars from Lebanon, compact yews from Ireland, chestnuts from the Indies, Arizona cypresses, box trees, false acacias, lovely and colourful rosebushes preside over this green space in the centre of the city, and there is even a striking specimen of the sacred tree of China, the ginkgo biloba, with its slender form and curious leaves. It all seems to be cared for with as much affection as knowledge, and it is also obligatory to mention that some trees are over a hundred years old and thus correspond to the original planting.

In the area that opens to Alcalá Street and the Plaza de Cibeles, the gardens

The Palace of Cibeles, headquarters of Madrid City Council, as seen from the gates of the Palace of Buenavista.

are bordered by a railing that was projected in 1870 and finished in March of 1872. Its author was Bernardo Asins (d. about 1899), who was locksmith to the royal family. The grilles and gates of the majestic building of the former Ministry of Development, nowadays, Ministry of Agriculture, are also his work. The railing, made of forged iron, rests on a granite base and is interrupted at intervals by columns that are topped by urns. Later, between the last trimester of 1877 and the first months of 1878, the six bronze candelabras and lamps were installed, also designed by brigadier José María Aparici; these crown the columns that make up the triple entrance to the grounds. The two that flank the central entrance have five lights, while the two pairs of the side gates have only three.

The emblem that originally presided over the spacious main gate (five metres) of the railing was forged with the bronze of one of the enemy cannons captured in the African War, and which the Ministry of War had donated for this purpose. Made in accordance with the 1871 general project of ornamentation for the railing, this finishing touch was realized in 1873, as indicated by Ossorio y Bernard (1883-1884:190), by the sculptor Eugenio Duque y Duque, from Toledo, author of various commemorative and funeral monuments and winner of a second place medal at the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1860. The artist was also court sculptor of Amadeus I of Savoy, of whom, along with the king’s wife, he made some lovely portraits that are now in the Royal Palace in Madrid. The artistic quality of the ornamentation did not achieve the desired refinement, doubtlessly due to the process its forging; it consisted of a bronze relief with the quarterly coat of arms of Spain under a royal crown and ringed by the necklace of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This has now been substituted by the emblem of the Army, flanked by seated figures of Minerva and Mars, on the left and right respectively, alongside of which appear horns of plenty. Underneath, in curving fashion, is the motto: ‘Cuartel General del Ejército’, having replaced the original which read ‘Ministerio de la Guerra’, which was then changed to ‘Ministerio del Ejército’ after being renamed in 1928. The earlier emblem was moved in 1981 to the Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar.

Shortly afterwards, the railing of the area bordering the Plaza de Cibeles was modified as a result of new street work carried out in the summer of 1900, in which a section of the gardens was once more ceded to the city, in addition to the area occupied by the small pavilion that housed the Dirección General de Instrucción Militar. This is shown in a plan made in August of that year by the colonel of Ingenieros Luis Ayllón, in which one can see the opening of two double gates (now normally kept closed) in the section on the Paseo de Recoletos, and the curved profile of a part of the railing on the square. The extremes of the railing were decorated with candelabras adorned on their lower sections with figures of infants by the Madrid-born sculptor Miguel Ángel Trilles (1866-1936); one of the groups is formed by two children who bear a vegetable crown, one standing and holding a sword, while the other is sitting and plays a drum. The other group is composed of a sitting child with a book and another child standing with a sword; a flag and a helmet lie at their feet. Both groups were made at the foundry Masriera y Campins in Barcelona, whose identification plaque is on the base of one of the groups. Apparently, the railing and the sculptural groups were paid for by the City Council of the capital in exchange for the cession of the grounds.

The sloping gardens are accessible by two vehicle ramps that begin at the side entrances of the main gate, or else by the stone stairs that link the central area of the railing with the main entrance to the palace and are lined by two rows of leafy trees with four rest areas. On either side of the stairs are two simple fountains with various white marble basins and two feminine figures, which were originally carved in stone and have been recast in bronze by Fundición Capa to protect them from deterioration, while the originals are safely stored away. One of them is accompanied by a cupid with his bow, while the other (185 x 85 cm) wears a diadem of feathers and seems to contemplate itself in a mirror. Originally this figure held a cross in its right hand, in accordance with the imagery established decades before in monuments dedicated to Columbus in Italy and Latin America. This image was the work An Indian Girl Embracing Christianity, which was created in 1862 by the sculptor from Gerona Juan Figueras Vila (1829-1881) and exhibited in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts that was held the same year, where it was awarded a second class medal and was acquired by the government for the Museo del Prado. It was subsequently deposited in Buenavista in 1924 alongside the first. In terms of the fountains, it should be remembered that there was a gardened zone in the large courtyard of the palace, with a large granite pool seven metres in diameter with an allegorical marble statue in its centre.

Standing on a simple granite pedestal in the axis of the central access is an excellent sculpture (240 x 154 x 94 cm) representing Bravery in the form of a nude warrior of advanced age, with beard, moustache and wearing a helmet topped off by a winged figure. The warrior holds a short sword in his right hand, the sheath of which hangs across his chest by a cord. He is sitting on a rock with his right leg over the left, wearing Roman-style sandals. By his side rests a shield partly covered by a lion skin and

with illegible writing. On the front of the base, one can read EL VALOR and on the left, J. ALCOVERRO. In effect, the figure was originally carved in limestone by José Alcoverro y Amorós (1835-1908) a notable artist of the Restoration from Tarragona who realized various monuments and statues of illustrious figures in Madrid, generally in reclining postures. In 1927, however, in view of the degradation suffered by the stone, the Sevillian Lorenzo Coullaut Valera (1876-1932), who had achieved notable triumphs as the author of monuments in different Spanish capitals, was commissioned to remake the work. Nonetheless, to avoid its further deterioration, it became necessary some years ago to replace the second limestone figure with the present one cast in bronze realized at the workshop of the sculptor and caster Eduardo Capa.

In a gardened area of the upper section near the west side of the palace, are the remains of the monument that had been dedicated to the captain Pedro Bermejo in Madrid’s Parque del Oeste and which the City Council gave to the Army in 2000. It was realized on the initiative of the mayor of Madrid, Alberto Aguilera, who in 1909 proposed making various sculptures in memory of the most notable members of the Spanish troops killed in combat in Morocco, above all in the Rif campaign, and thereby extol patriotism as personified in military virtues. The mayor managed to bring together various entities, among which the Círculo de Bellas Artes agreed to pay for the monuments dedicated to General Díez Vicario, major Capapé, colonel Álvarez Cabrera and captain Bermejo. The statue of major Perinat, on the other hand, was paid for by the Regimiento de León, while that of the lieutenant colonel Ibáñez Marín was financed by the Ateneo in Madrid, which decided to commission the work to Mariano Benlliure. The group that now stands in the gardens of Buenavista was dedicated to the Infantry captain Pedro Bermejo y Sánchez-Caro, who was born in La Mata, Toledo, on 13th January 1877 and entered the Academia General Militar of Toledo in 1894. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1898, and to captain in 1905. After several assignments of active service and administrative duties in Madrid and Cuenca, he was given command of the second company of the Batallón de Cazadores de Madrid nº 2 in 1909, and posted to Melilla, where he took part in several combats, until he was shot in the head on 30th September 1909, in a skirmish which took place in the tribal grounds of the Beni bu-Ifrur tribe, near Nador. He was killed instantly, and posthumously promoted to major for his merit on the field of battle.

The dedication to this illustrious soldier is inscribed on the upper section of the pedestal (EL AYUNTAMIENTO / DE MADRID / AL HEROICO / CAPITÁN DE INFANTERÍA / D. PEDRO BERMEJO / Y SÁNCHEZ-CARO), and continues below with the circumstances of his death (MURIÓ GLORIOSAMENTE / EN EL COMBATE DEL / 30 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1909 / EN EL ZOCO DEL JEMIS / DE BENI-BU-IFRUR / (MELILLA), while the name of the sculptor is featured on the right hand side (DELGADO BRACKEMBURY / CAPITÁN DE INFANTERÍA). Beneath the pedestal, on a granite plinth, there is a verse from the hymn of the Infantry (Y LA PATRIA, AL QUE SU VIDA / LE ENTREGÓ, / EN LA FRENTE DOLORIDA / LE DEVUELVE AGRADECIDA / EL BESO QUE RECIBIÓ). Carved into badly weathered sandstone, most of the symbolic figure of the Nation can still be seen, in the form of a mourning female partly draped in a fine tunic holding a laurel branch in her right hand. The base was topped with the bust of the glorious soldier, worked in white marble and in full uniform with a cape, but which has now been lost.

The monument is the work of the Andalusian sculptor and soldier Manuel Delgado Brackembury (Las Cabezas de San Juan, Seville, 1882-Seville, 1941), an artist who had been trained in Barcelona with Rafael Atché and who had also studied under Querol, Benlliure and Llimona, and who had cultivated the academic figurative style of these, although his later work was rather lacking in vitality. Besides several works carried out for Seville, he also created a monument to the Fallen of the Spanish Air Force, which was placed in the gardens at the junction of Ferraz Street and Paseo de Rosales in 1918, but which today stands before the main façade of the Headquarters of the Air Force.

The monument to captain Bermejo, which measured 1.20 x 1 metre, was unveiled on 24th March 1911, after the government of the Villa y Corte had passed to José Francos Rodríguez. It was placed, along with the other works forming part of the municipal project, near the monument dedicated to the soldiers fallen in colonial wars, in the lower area of the Parque del Oeste, in a spot close to the crossing of the Paseo de Rosales and the Paseo de Moret. In the 1940’s, however, after having been damaged in the Civil War and furthermore, the patriotic intention of remembering the heroic acts of the Cuban, Philippine and African campaigns having now been forgotten, all of the monuments or their remains were taken down and stored in municipal warehouses.

Four lovely Corinthian columns originally taken from the Parque del Oeste now stand around it, equally worn by the hand of time.

THE EXTER IOR

ascual Madoz’ description of the Palace of Buenavista in 1848 states that the present main façade was located on the south side and that ‘it was facing the garden according to the original plan,’ measuring ‘253 feet in front with a height of 64 and 1/2 feet.’ He added that ‘it consists of four spaces, including the basements, with 17 balconies on each of the two upper floors, and three less on the entresol. The façade is located in the centre with two large niches, with the first and second floors above, all topped off by a triangular frontispiece that rests on four fluted columns of the Corinthian order. This frontispiece is the only distinguishing feature between this façade and those on the east and west sides. The cornice extends down on either side from the base of the triangle. Each of the three façades has a stone masonry base, above which the body rises to the impost that separates the entresol and the main floor, the balconies of which are decorated with dust guards, while those of the second floor have jambs.’

In effect, the monumental building has a face of granite masonry on its lower section, except for the central area of the two façades and the two corners, where the stone reaches up to the main floor. The rest of the construction is of red brick that alternates with the granite of the corbels, imposts and dust guards of the two floors, as well as the cornice that tops the entire building.

The size of the palace is 135 metres in length and 75 metres in width. Each floor has a total of 94 openings in the façade, 17 on each of the two lesser façades and 30 on each side. As for the courtyards, the small one measures 35 x 21 metres and the large one, 55 x 42 metres.

The well-known author of the Diccionario continued by commenting that ‘the effect produced by the whole was not to be surpassed, with its combination of lovely and majestic architecture, its advantageous position on very raised ground, the harmony of its three rows of balconies and, lastly, that no other building blocks it from being visible outside of Madrid. It is a shame that the space between the palace and Alcalá Street is not leveled, at the end of which is a modern entrance with three gates, a larger one in the middle with two smaller ones on either side with panels on top, all made of masonry.’

The ‘triangular frontispiece’ of the main façade mentioned by Madoz is a pediment whose tympanum once contained a stucco low relief, in the centre of which was a clock that had been a gift of the Dirección General de Caballería in the early 1870’s. Two feminine figures appear in the relief dressed in 18th century style; they are sitting against the clock face, accompanied on either side by two children bearing instruments who are also sitting to better accommodate themselves in the triangular space, in keeping with classical norms. When renovations were made by General Varela Iglesias in the early 1940’s, however, it was decided to substitute this sculptural decoration, by then quite deteriorated, for a new one, and a public competition was held to this end in 1941. The model chosen was by the military man and writer, Joaquín Martínez Friera, who describes it himself in his already mentioned book (1943:334-335): ‘Three figures make up the sculptural group: War, Mother Country and History. As can be seen, all are immutable in the face of time and very appropriate to the function of the body that occupies the Palace. The meaning of the group is the following: War, which returns triumphantly from the battlefield, rests on the lap of Mother Country who, after crowning him with laurels for his victory, dictates to History the heroic feats of her brave children, for example in securing peace for future generations.’

The idea was skilfully translated into sculpture between 1942 and 1944 by the famous Segovia-born sculptor Aniceto Marinas García (1866-1953) who, with a good deal of help from assistants given his advanced age, added to the three figures various symbolic elements related to War (lion, cannon, flags), the progress of Agriculture (ox), Industry (anvil) and Commerce (cogwheel), all under the protection of Peace. A model of the pediment, on a small scale, decorates the upper part of the back door of the former Museo del Ejército, in Madrid.

On either side of the main entrance, two modern, natural-sized bronze sculptures are located in niches: Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, el Cid, the Brave, dressed in a long cape and resting his hands on the famous Tizona, occupies the right side of the entrance, while on the other side is the figure of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, el Gran Capitán, who is dressed in armour and brandishes a sword in his hands horizontally. These

Aniceto Marinas. Pediment of the main façade.

are the work of the sculptor Caulonga, who made them in 1982 using his special expressionist language of treating surfaces.

Four other bronze sculptures, this time by the soldier, painter and sculptor Antonio Colmeiro, are located in niches on the north and south side of the large courtyard. Larger than life size, they are placed in pairs and represent Don Pelayo, as the initiator of the unification of Spain; Hernán Cortés (the sketch of which is preserved in the Office of the Adjutants of the Chief of Staff), as the greatest captain of all time; a Soldier of the Tercios as a symbol of the best infantry; and a Soldier of the 20th Century, as a symbol of hope for the future. In the spring of 1984, Colmeiro received the commission to make models for these four large statues (three metres in height), the casting of which was realized in the following order: in 1985, that of Cortés; in 1986, that of Don Pelayo; in 1987, that of the soldier of the Tercios and, finally, that of the modern soldier. Some years later, it was decided to increase the number of statues, and Colmeiro himself proceeded to realize four more, one representing Francisco Pizarro (cast in 2000), Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (2001), Agustina Zaragoza y Doménech, the popular Agustina de Aragón (2001), and Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the famous Gran Capitán (2002), which are located in pairs on pedestals along the long sides of the courtyard.

THE INTERIOR OF THE PALACE

THE GR A N D STA IRCASE

hallway leads to the main floor by way of a set of straight stairs divided by two resting areas. Four great stone columns of the Tuscan order underline the ascending nature of the space, while the grey jasper banister contrasts with the granite steps. Various Ionic columns attached to the walls unify the space with the vestibule of the upper floor.

The stairwell is now covered by a flat roof, although previously it was topped by a coffered plaster rectangle in imitation wood and decorated with military trophies. The adjoining space was closed by a vault, also of plaster, adorned in its centre with the imperial Habsburg shield and at the corners with the emblems of the four medieval military orders, along with different heads of warriors and figures of heralds. It is possible that this decoration was realized in 1880, a date in which the budget shows a considerable investment in the decoration of the stairs.

On the first landing is a pair of modern suits of armour, each with a large sword in its hands. At the start of the banister, there is a pair of excellent candelabra (164 cm in height) of gilt bronze from the 19th century, with a Renaissance style shaft that ends in four hoof-shaped feet. They bear the mark (‘V.P.’ and crown) of the French bronze worker Victor Paillard, active in Paris from 1830 until his death in 1886, and who specialized in the production of candelabras, clocks

The Grand Staircase.

The Victory of Tito tapestry and a suit of armour.

and sculptures destined for the embellishment of palaces and residences. At the top of the stairs there are two gilt bronze jars (98 cm in height) in the form of cups with handles in the form of lion’s heads with rings in their mouths and stoppers with vegetation motifs that, according to an inscription, were made at the Fundición de Artillería de Sevilla in 1899 after a model by the sculptor P. Domínguez.

The stairs end at a hallway, where there is another pair of suits of armour, this time with lances, and a bust of the Gran Capitán (84 x 72 x 28 cm), an exceptional military genius who successfully combined for the first time infantry, cavalry and artillery on the battlefield. Signed on the lower left by the sculptor, painter and architect from Madrid, Federico Amutio y Amil (1869-1942), it was cast in bronze at the Barcelona workshops of Masriera y Campins; a copy exists in the Museo del Ejército. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, with a highly idealized face and a gaze looking off into the distance, is dressed in the fashion of Spain in the time of the Catholic Monarchs, with cloak and cuirass; above the latter is the medal of the medieval Aragonese Order of the Lilium and the Jar, consisting of a medallion with the Virgin hanging from a chain formed by dragons.

Since 2015, the Victory of Tito tapestry, which was created in the latter part of the XVII century in the workshops of Geraert Peemans in Brussels, has hung on the main wall of the hallway. It shows the conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD, during the first Jewish-Roman War. On the left, in the foreground, the future Emperor Tito sits on horseback in front of his troops. He wears armour and a laurel wreath. Other horseman gallop towards the city with him, whilst on the left, in the middle ground, the Roman infantry is shown trying to climb to the top of a tower, whilst the Jews endeavour to defend themselves. The border shows a lavish garland of flowers, fruit, birds and urns. At the top, in the centre, there is a knot of laurel from which palm fronds, flowers, two crossed swords, a torch and a caduceus emerge. The tapestry is made from wool and silk and belongs to the Museo del Prado.

There is also a 19th century gilt bronze clock of French manufacture with painted porcelain adornments of abundant vegetation decoration and stone chippings on its base, that also bears two porcelain plaques with infant representations with the symbols of Painting and Music. On the upper part, a sitting figure representing Fame, accompanied by two children, supports in his right hand an oval medallion in which an allegory of the Fine Arts is painted. This clock has two matching gilt bronze candelabras with painted porcelain plaques on their bases, which are kept in the Don Quixote Hall.

There is also another clock with the same mechanical system, signed on its dial in Madrid by Pedro Lagaillarde and with a figure of a monarch who might be Henry III.

THE OFFICI A L H A LLS

he main area of the palace, formed by the different official halls, is situated on a lengthy axis running parallel to the main façade and open to the gardens. The various departments are located from right to left along this axis and their entrances deserve detailed observation, not only for the beauty of the design of their double doors but also for the considerable thickness of the walls that, as with the 18th century façades (almost two and a half metres wide), contrast with the lesser dimensions of walls built in later renovations of the palace. The height of the halls in the official area is around 5.9 metres, while that of the ground floor and second floor is 1.10 metres less.

The tour of the seven halls that open to the main façade ends at the Prim Hall, after which come the halls situated along the west side of the palace (the Hall of Ambassadors, the Hall of Porcelains). The areas reserved for the private residence of the Chief of Staff of the Army, a number of which open onto the small courtyard, are located further along this side.

THE OFFICE OF THE ADJUTANTS

The former waiting hall of the ministry of War today serves as the Office of the Adjutants of the Chief of Staff of the Army. This room is entered through a double door, similar to the others located in the chamber, decorated in the style of Charles IV in white and bluish green with gilt ornamentations.

The Office of the Adjutants.

The ceiling’s simply ornamented cornice combines gilt and greenish blue tones with the architectural elements, crowns of laurels with branches, military trophies and, at the corners, feminine medallions in the classical style between laurel and oak branches and scallop shells. In the centre of the space hangs a bronze and crystal lamp that dates from the middle of the 19th century and is decorated with various medallions and a group of infants on its upper part.

Notable among the furnishings, which imitate the style of Louis XV although mostly dating from the 19th century, is a pair of mahogany chests with undulating profiles, handles and keyholes of richly decorated gilt bronze ornamentation in the Rococo style, with green and white marble tops. Above these 18th century pieces are two mirrors in gilt frames decorated with vegetation motifs and a scallop shell, as if wishing to echo the ornamentation of the ceiling’s corners. There is also a Louis XV console with a white marble top very similar to the other two mentioned above, and a table in the Louis XVI style. On one of the furnishings is a slate and bronze clock with two friezes on its base showing classical figures in low relief, while a sitting geographer, perhaps Galileo, is above, holding an armillary sphere and a compass, while two books appear behind him.

Various sculptures also adorn the chests. They are the representations of an Italian Soldier (56 x 14 x 12 cm) and an ltalian Lancer (41 x 17 x 40 cm), cast in bronze, which were given by the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.

The most interesting artistic works of this room, however, are the portraits that represent four kings of the House of Bourbon. One of them is the portrait of Philip V (141 x 111 cm) by Louis-Michel van Loo (1707- 1771). Portrayed a bit more than half body, the monarch appears dressed in armour and a royal cloak of ermine, while on his chest is the necklace of Golden Fleece and the blue band of the French Order of the Holly Spirit. He holds the sceptre of command in his left hand and rests his right hand on his sword. The scene is completed by a showy helmet with feathers and a background landscape of gentle chromatic gradation. The canvas, which is similar to one in the Museo del Prado, may be dated to sometime between the artist’s arrival in Spain in 1737 to become court painter, and the death of the sovereign in 1746.

The second portrait (106 x 84 cm), on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 2370), depicts the King Louis I of Bourbon and is by the Frenchman Jean Ranc (1674-1735), although some details lead one to suspect it may be a studio copy. The monarch, represented in a bit more than half body and from the side, is dressed in a blue coat with elegant borders, half armour and red cloak and holds the sceptre in his right hand. The background consists of a simple landscape.

There is also a portrait (143 x 114 cm) of Charles IV, by an anonymous painter of the later 18th century, of significantly inferior quality to the previous two, but of interest from the point of view of iconography. The figure of the sovereign appears a bit more than half body, dressed in the uniform of a colonel of the Guardias de Corps, with the Golden Fleece and band and plaque of the Order of Charles III and other decorations. He rests his right hand on a chair, while his hat and staff are on the table.

The only representation of a woman is that of Queen Isabella II with the Infanta Isabella in her Arms (142 x 101 cm), the work of Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz (1815-1894). Signed (F.M.º/1852) in the lower right corner, the painting depicts the queen sitting in a richly decorated chair, dressed in a green satin dress and a white embroidered blouse and without any indication of her royal rank. In her lap, she holds the then Princess of Asturias, the small Infanta Isabel Francisca (later celebrated in Madrid as ‘La Chata’), only a few months old and dressed in a light white shirt. The sombre background of the painting is possibly a room of the Royal Palace in Madrid. In that building there is a portrait of a similar size that represents, also in civil attire and without the pomp of official images, the consort king, Francisco de Asís. Both paintings were realized by Madrazo, then the second court painter, to be given to the Infante Francisco de Paula, father of the monarch, although it is not known how the first work arrived at its present location. In this extraordinarily intimate painting of Isabella II, the light brushwork contrasts the perfectly modelled faces of both figures, and the white of the cloth and shiny greens of the satin, with the thick impasto of the gilt ornaments of the chair, all of which was brought to light after a restoration.

THE PRIVATE SECRETARY’S OFFICE

The ceiling of the antechamber of the Private Secretary’s Office was beautifully decorated in the 19th century with paintings in a neoclassicist style, which were cleaned after more than half a century. Delicate workmanship depicts fine cloths, in which vegetation motifs alternate with masks, running along the cornice in a gardened border. There is a lovely 19th century chest in the Empire

style, of fine wood and adorned with bronze, with elegant and notable feminine figures on its edges. It also retains a clock from the 19th century, made from green and black marble in simple shapes and bearing the signature of the Parisian Raingo brothers on its dial.

On one of the walls is a surprising portrait (210 x 132 cm) of the King Ferdinand VII, dressed in armour and royal cloak, which was restored after having suffered serious damage in the past. The work is of exceptional interest for its iconographic quality, providing a rare glimpse of the monarch dressed in such a manner. Ferdinand VII, portrayed full body and in an almost frontal position, is dressed in full armour with a wide general’s sash and red cloak with ermine. Various bands cross his chest, among which are the royal orders of Charles III and Saint Januarius, as well as the necklaces of the Golden Fleece and Charles III. He holds a sceptre in his right hand and wears a sword on his belt, while the crown and a plumed helmet rest on a green cloth on a table behind him. In the background is a curtain and wall. It is a canvas of admirable execution and not bad quality, but cannot be traced to a specific artist, perhaps being a work realized in Madrid in the second decade of the 19th century, possibly from the final years of the War of Independence. This would explain the desire to highlight the warrior nature of the monarch as victor over the French invaders. Some details of the composition are reminiscent of official portraits of Charles III, particularly those by Mengs, and was perhaps thus originally a portrait of that monarch, whose face was later substituted for that of Ferdinand VII. Its execution, however, is much looser than the works by the Bohemian painter, even approaching in certain aspects the style used by Goya himself in these years. On the other hand, certain motifs, especially on the right showing the crown and the crested helmet on the table, bring to mind the small sketch for a portrait of Charles III painted by Mariano Salvador Maella (1739-1819), which is conserved in the Museum of Fine Arts in Agen (France), thus making possible an association between the Valencian artist and this canvas of Ferdinand VII. It was precisely this monarch who dismissed the painter from the Court for having maintained relations with the French during the conflict.

The portrait of Queen Isabella II as a Girl (118 x 82 cm) dates from the 19th century. The sovereign, depicted full body, is dressed in a white ceremonial dress and wears the band of the Royal Order of Maria Luisa. Her right hand rests on the royal crown, which, along with the sceptre, sits on a red cushion; the royal cloak and shield are below. Her gloved left hand holds the right hand glove and seems to be slightly raising the skirt; in the background is a large curtain and a column, while a window on the left opens to a landscape. The canvas reproduces the official portrait of the girl queen made by the Valencian Vicente López in about 1834, although in this case, it must be assumed that this is a repetition of the painting made by his son Bernardo López Piquer (18001874), a close collaborator of his father in the creation of this type of composition. Isabella II, born in 1830, would be between four and six years of age in this canvas, which is almost identical to those preserved in the Ministry of Internal Revenue, the City Council of Madrid, and the Museo de Historia de Madrid, as well as on the stairs of the private residence of this same palace.

The office of the Private Secretary, which in other times was occupied by the under-secretary of War, and then of the Army, preserves a wall clock made in Madrid in the 19th century. This timepiece has different inlaid elements on its frame that contrast with the alabaster clock face and its porcelain numbers and gilt panels. The painting Landscape with a River (74 x 98 cm) by an anonymous 17th century painter, but characteristic of the French school, hangs on the wall. The river, which centres the composition and flows toward the background, flows past a large tree on the right with leaves of a velvety quality, before which two semi-nude figures fish in a backwater. On the left, there are some rocks and two other, smaller figures, also fishing. In the background, a large fortress rises that brings to mind the creations of classical French landscape painting from the mid-17th century, especially Nicolas Poussin.

THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE ARMY

The present work office of the highest-ranking position of the Army was previously used from the mid-19th century onwards by the under-secretary of the Ministry of War. The vaulted ceiling is decorated with an elegant pictorial composition realized in tempera over a fine layer of stucco, a technique used on the ceilings of the principal halls of the main floor. Most of these, like numerous paintings on canvas, have been restored in recent years, as the Army strives to maintain its rich artistic heritage in the best possible conditions, as has been very well described by González-Pola (1995:277-285).

Various pairs of nymphs in counterpoise and active poises flank various vessels containing flowers, while some putti hold up wreaths in the lower are-

The ceiling of the Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army.

as, their glances and gestures pointing to the central couples of each lunette. As much in the floral motifs as in the compartmentalization of the surface, the paintings reveal a certain echo of the decorations realized by Juan de la Mata Duque in some of the halls of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez and in the Casa del Labrador of the same royal site. The gilt bronze lamp, one of the most elegant in the palace, dates from the 19th century and consists of two bodies with vegetation ornamentation realized in the same material.

On one of the walls hangs a painting titled The Relief of Constance, by the Italian Vicente Carducho. It shows the liberation of the city from the Swedish Army’s siege, which tried to cut the communication lines between the imperial troops and their Spanish counterparts during the Thirty Years War. This is one of the three paintings, along with The Storming of Rhienfelden and The Liberation of Brisach which were painted to hang in the Hall of the Kingdoms to commemorate the victories of the Alsace Army, commanded by Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, Duke of Feria, in 1633. The duke is shown on horseback in the foreground and takes up almost all of the left side of the canvas. He wears half armour, a hat, and the general’s red sash, whilst in one hand he carries the commander’s sceptre. Next to him is a page, who is carrying his lance, and several knights in armour. The battle takes place in the middle ground and in the background lies the city of Constance at a distance, located on the banks of a lake with the same name. This painting is the property of the Museo del Prado.

The portrait of Philip VI by Antonio Montiel, which shows the King wearing the uniform of the captain general of the Army, is much more recent. Painted in 2019, it is a highly realistic work, which stands out due to the monarch’s gaze and the expressiveness of his face. There is a French Brocot clock from the end of the 19th century. Its black marble base has two bronze figures of medieval warriors, whose elbows rest on the plinth that houses the clock’s workings, while below are two helmets. The clock forms a group with a pair of candelabras whose shaft is a figure of a warrior from the same period, holding up a military trophy.

THE TENIERS HALL

One of the halls with the strongest 18th century character is the Teniers Hall, which was formerly the Hall of the Adjutants, having previously been mentioned in 1852 as the waiting hall for the generals who were to be received by the minister of the Army. The present name alludes to the Flemish painter, David Teniers (1611-1690), whose paintings inspired the tapestries that hang on the walls.

These tapestries, as well as those in various following halls, were made from silk and wool threads in the mid-18th century at the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara in Madrid, which Philip V had founded in 1720 in order to be supplied with the necessary tapestries for the decoration of the royal palaces after the relationship the kings of the House of Habsburg had maintained with the Flemish manufacturers in Brussels was interrupted. The initiator of the Real Fábrica in Madrid was the Flemish master tapestry maker from Antwerp, Jacobo Vandergoten, who arrived at the Court in 1720 accompanied by his children and various officials. Upon his death in 1724, direction of the workshop went to his sons Francisco, Jacobo ‘el Mozo’ and Cornelio, who remained there until 1786 and who changed production of cloths from low to high headle, thereby allowing for

The Teniers Hall.

the manufacture of works of greater artistic quality, despite these being somewhat slower to make.

After an initial period coinciding with the reigns of Philip V and Louis I, during which court painters such as Amiconi, Giaquinto and Procaccini determined the artistic direction of the manufacture of the tapestries and executed the models, the Real Fábrica went through various periods of crisis, but managed to overcome them thanks to an agreement signed in 1744 with the Crown to work by contract, with the monarchy obligated to supply the sketches for the tapestries. Working in this way, a number of tapestries were woven according to models inspired by the subject matter of works by Teniers, Van Loo, Antonio González Ruiz and Andrés de la Calleja, among other court artists. Later, the arrival of Mengs in 1762 to take over the direction of the Real Fábrica as commissioned by Charles III, led to one of its finest periods, with a radical change in subject matter from Flemish subjects to ones inspired by prints which were popular in Madrid and were also very decorative. These years saw the participation of such notable artists as José del Castillo, the brothers Francisco and Ramón Bayeu, Ginés Andrés de Aguirre, Zacarías González Velázquez and, above all, Francisco de Goya. With the death of Cornelio Vandergoten in 1786, direction of the Fábrica went to his nephew, Livinio Stuyck, who began a dynasty of tapestry makers that has survived almost up until the present.

As with the tapestries that decorate various chambers of the Bourbons at the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, those which embellish the Teniers Hall seem to have been produced at the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara during the end of the reign of Philip V

and the death of his son and heir Ferdinand VI. It was at this time that the pieces were woven following models by Teniers and executed by various artists in the service of the Court of Madrid. According to Jutta Held (Die Genrehilder der Madrider Teppichmanufaktur und die Anfänge Goyas, Berlin, 1971), most of the sketches were supplied by the Frenchman, Louis-Michel van Loo, already mentioned as a portrait artist, the Italian of French origin, Guillermo Anglois, Matías Téllez, Antonio González Velázquez and Andrés de la Calleja. The last was the author in about 1775 of the sketches destined for the tapestries of the former Coffee Room of the Palace of El Pardo, three of which, as Morales Piga has shown (1992: 435-469), form part today of the decoration of this hall after having been confiscated in 1937 and later moved to Geneva, where they were recovered in 1939 by the Patrimonio Nacional and deposited in October of that year at the then Ministry of the Army in order to decorate some of the ministry’s departments.

The scenes clearly show Teniers’ interest in popular subject matter, which increased after 1630 as a consequence of his relationship with Adriaen Brouwer. Thus, the scenes of the kermesse, or country festivals, and taverns with gamblers and drunks would be repeated in his work. The figures, either standing or sitting, are skilfully composed in groups located in the open air, thereby giving special importance to the landscape. The clear and luminous colouring and the light and fluid brushstroke are, in the opinion of Leo van Puyvelde (La peinture flamande au siècle de Rubens, Brussels, 1970), the most outstanding technical features of Teniers’ canvases, in which the villagers appear represented almost as picturesque objects, mixing men and women, youths and the elderly in happy and carefree dances, sitting a round tables well-laden with food and drink, or attentive to the ups and downs of the game, all generally alongside rustic constructions. And all of this bathed in a golden light coming from a sun that shines in luminous blue sky dotted with light clouds.

Starting from the southeast corner and from left to right, the hangings depict the following scenes: one above the entrance titled Meal in the Country (108 x 149 cm), after a vanished model by Andrés de la Calleja (1705-1785), which presents two couples and a girl at a table, while in the distance to the right are figures in the land scape. The same stretch of wall is covered by The Bagpiper, a narrow tapestry (250 x 56 cm; Held nº 49) showing a bagpiper accompanied by a dog and beside a tree; The Music Lesson (250 x 173 cm; Held nº 50), in which four figures sing and play musical instruments in the company of an old woman and in front of a palisade above which two figures appear, while another figure appears at the door of a house, above which a white cloth tied to a broom stick resembles a flag; and another narrow hanging (250 x 80 cm) representing A Musician who blows a panpipe. All three works are the creation of Guillermo Anglois in a free interpretation of models by the Flemish Teniers.

Also attributed to Anglois, although some believe it to be the work of Andrés de la Calleja, is the hanging (250 x 90 cm; Held nº 63) that initiates the decoration of the long wall of the hall and which is titled Various Shepherds and Shepherdesses Milking and Talking, in which a seated villager, with her back to the viewer, milks a cow under the attentive gaze of another woman who holds a pitcher and at whose side are other vessels, both figures placed in front of a leafy tree and a landscape with the slate-roofed tower of a church. Next is a Dance Scene (250 x 214 cm; Held nº 410), composed by Van Loo, in which ‘two men and two women dance to the sound of a bagpipe played by a one-eyed man standing over a half of a barrel’. The scene is set in front of a house, where a woman appears at the door. On the left, meanwhile, a youth happily raises up a cup in his right hand. A Meal at the Door of a House (250 x 295 cm), attributed to Van Loo, although more likely the work of Antonio González Ruiz (17111788), presents various figures sitting and standing around a table. Another group, meanwhile, drinks at the door of a house, out of which a woman exits bearing food; two curious figures lean out the window, while a church of cubic forms appears in the background. The hanging titled Smokers (250 x 215 cm) is considered to be the work of Van Loo; here, various sitting and standing peasants drink and smoke in front of that type of rustic residence so common in the paintings of Teniers, at the door of which appears a woman with a pitcher, while in the pigsty to the right the head of a pig can be seen with a dog in front. The next work is Cowhands (250 x 140 cm), after a sketch by Andrés de la Calleja (although it may also possibly be the work of Antonio González Ruiz, who is credited with making a similar one), composed of two men, one sitting on the ground, beside two cows, while a herd of cows appears in the distance by a river.

The side wall is decorated with a narrow hanging (250 x 70 cm; Held nº 436) with a lovely landscape background that bears no relation to the style of the Flemish Teniers, but rather, in terms of both subject matter and technique, with that of later works produced at the Real Fábrica under the direction of Antón Raphael Mengs. Titled A Beggar, it shows a well-dressed youth placing coins in the hat proffered by a beggar

sitting on the ground. Although some believe the work to be by José del Castillo, it must surely be by Matías Téllez, an almost unknown artist who was in the service of the Real Fábrica between 1750 and 1765. Although there are some doubts, the original sketch seems to correspond to one on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 5795) at the Spanish Embassy in London.

The next tapestry (250 x 170 cm; Held nº 127) is titled The Wild Boar Hunt and is realized after a sketch preserved in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Although it was first thought to be the work of Francisco Bayeu (1734-1795) and Held considered it to be the work of his brother Ramón Bayeu (1746-1793), today it is known without a doubt to be the first sketch made by the genius Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) for the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara in 1775, precisely to serve as a model for a tapestry destined to decorate the Dining Hall of the Princes of Asturias in the Palace of the Bourbons of the Monastery of El Escorial. To learn more about the tapestry, there is no better source than the description of it made on 24th May 1775 by the Aragonese painter himself, as he was wont to do of all his work: ‘A painting that represents a wild boar attacked by four dogs, three on the boar and one on the ground, beaten, and four hunters who, with their bayonets, come to finish it off, and the corresponding landscape’ (Sambricio, 1946:186). This then, is the scene: in a landscape background with houses, three hunters with guns and dogs attack a wild boar, while another of the men finishes the animal off with the bayonet of his gun. Very little in this composition, however, is Goya-esque, leading one to think that the artist of Fuendetodos limited himself in this initial work to working from a scene already traced by Francisco Bayeu, his brother-in-law and the one who introduced him to the

An Spanish clock from the 19th century, flanked by a pair of candelabras.

royal manufacturer, and whose artistic direction Goya himself admitted to having followed in these first sketches.

A narrow tapestry (250 x 85 cm) titled A Drunkard made after a model attributed to Andrés de la Calleja and now at the Universidad de Valladolid, shows a man before a rural landscape, crowned by vine leaves as if he were Bacchus, raising a cup in his right hand while grasping a vessel of wine in the other. The sketch for the tapestry above the entrance is by Antonio González Velázquez. Titled Three Men Playing Cards (120 x 156 cm; Held nº 356) the work shows villagers in rustic surroundings playing and arguing over a play of the game, while in the background on the right are some houses.

On the remaining area of the wall and flanked by the hall’s windows, are two other tapestries inspired by Teniers: Card Players (250 x 120 cm), by an unknown artist, although possibly by Van Loo, showing three men beside a house sitting at a table and playing cards, while two other men speak among themselves; and Youths Drinking (250 x 112 cm), apparently realized after a sketch by Van Loo, in which, after a foreground with

various objects depicted with extraordinary detail, two men appear sitting on a box and a barrel, respectively; one of the men drinks while the other, who holds a glass in his right hand, tries to take the container away from him. Behind them is a rustic wall, in front of which a group of two women and a youth watch the dispute.

The beauty of the tapestries, however, should not keep one from contemplating the ceiling, which is decorated in soft colours in the Neoclassical style, with laurel wreaths and amphorae joined by garlands, and a frieze of canes and four medallions, with busts in profile in the corners.

In addition to the splendid Isabelline chandelier that hangs from the ceiling, made up of two levels of lights with bronze adornments and cut crystal and dating from the mid-19th century, the hall is also decorated with other works of artistic interest. A wooden writing desk with gilt metallic marquetry and feet shaped like claws also dates from the 19th century. Two pairs of gilt bronze candelabras from the same century stand above two Isabelline consoles, made from gilt wood and with marble counters. The candelabras each have different complex bases in the form of cherubs holding up a trunk, from which branches sprout with lights of different heights. A Louis XV table of gilt wood beautifully finished and with a streaked brown marble counter, also from the 19th century, occupies the central space. Another two consoles with three feet shaped like goat’s hooves, various benches and a sofa complete the furnishings, all of which are accompanied by a modern cabinet of excellent workmanship, particularly for the delicate work of inlaid wood visible on its front.

The hall’s elegance is enhanced by four valuable 19th century table clocks, three of French manufacture and one of Spanish. One of these, in the Empire style and of gilt bronze, signed in the clock face ‘Grand Depôt / Rue Drouot, 21 / Paris’, has a rectangular base with cornucopias on its front and the inscription ‘Alexandre, ami de la France’, above which is a rectangle that, in addition to housing the machinery, serves as a support for an armillary sphere, a two-cornered hat and a parchment with the inscription ‘Passage du Rhin pour le repos de l’Europe’, on the left is the emperor Alexander I of Russia, standing and in uniform, with a parchment in his right hand on which one can read ‘Traité des Puissances alliées avec la France’, which must allude to the treaty signed after the Napoleonic victory of Austerlitz. Another, very similar clock, also dating from the first half of the 19th century, bears the mark ‘Chambrot à Paris’. A third clock of gilt bronze is signed ‘Vor. Paillard & Romain-Fants. de Bronzes – Paris’ on the clock face, flanked by two cherubs, one with a bow and a torch in its hands; a third cherub rests on some garlands on a base richly decorated in the style of the pair of candelabras that accompany it. The three pieces were made in the mid-19th century in the Parisian workshop of Victor Paillard, who specialized in these types of objects adorned with infant figures. The last clock, also of gilt bronze and from the same period as the last, is signed ‘P. Prevot / Calle Alcalá, 36 / Madrid’, where it was mounted, although it was possibly made in France. It has a case profusely decorated with vegetation motifs, while on the upper section a cherub appears bearing a sand clock in its left hand.

Two cast iron figures (95 x 24 cm) with some gilt details, date from the 19th century and, as indicated by the inscriptions on their bases, represent Richard the Lionheart, and Philip Augustus, forming a group with one of the statues in the Office of the Adjutants. THE GOYA HALL

Previously known as the Yellow Hall, this chamber served as the Hall of Audiences of the ministry of War and also as the setting for some of the meetings of the Council of Ministers that took place at Buenavista. It conserves the appearance of an 18th century palace hall with its walls covered by tapestries. The ceiling is decorated in the Neoclassical style with various tones of soft gold. Various garlands of flowers and crowns of laurel separated by triglyphs that successfully give a sense of volume constitute the first level, above which is another of refined decoration of vegetation interlinked with fantastic animals, and a third and final level of canes, while in the centre of the ceiling is a broad filigree of vegetation. The large chandelier has vegetation motifs of bronze and garlands and teardrops of carved crystal and dates from the mid-19th century.

Notable among the furnishings are two console tables in the style of Charles IV, with simple carvings and streaked marble counters in yellow and red, which seem to have been made after a design that is now in the Madrid collection of the dukes of Sueca and which is signed by the architect Ventura Rodríguez. This drawing was discovered in 1961 and was first associated with the Infante Luis de Borbón and his palace of Boadilla del Monte (‘Una consola de Ventura Rodríguez’, Arte y Hogar, 1961, nº 199); but shortly afterwards, Eduardo Figueroa (1963:20-21) associated it with Godoy’s patronage of the Madrid-born architect, a notion which was in turn refuted some years later by Reese (1976, 1:188-189 and pic. 263), who viewed this as a great error and once again related it to Boadilla. The identification a decade ago of these two pieces in the Goya Hall allows us to guarantee the correctness

The Goya Hall.

of Figueroa’s suspicions, with the two console tables possibly having belonged to the furnishings that Godoy had at his disposal for Buenavista.

In the same hall, there is also another, very similar console table, although its decoration is simpler. There is also a wide table in the Empire style, supported by six lion’s feet with adornments of gilt bronze, various three-piece suites, armchairs and benches from the 19th century, but in the style of the console tables. There are also two writing desks in the Empire style, which form part of the former furnishings of the Prim Hall. Above one of these is a small bronze bust (29 x 17 x 13 cm) of the Prince of Asturias, Don Felipe de Borbón, dressed in the uniform of the Academia General, which was created about 1987 by the already mentioned sculptor Santiago de Santiago.

Above the console tables are three pairs of elegant gilt bronze candelabras from the 19th century, most notably those that form part of a fluted column with acanthus leaves, out of which extend the arms of the lamp, and those that have as a shaft a winged feminine figure. Between the candelabras are various, interesting clocks. One from the mid19th century in the style of the Second Empire, has a pedestal of gilt bronze decorated with the emblems of Literature, Music and Painting and some vegetation motifs. Above the clock face are two bronze figures who represent the Renaissance painter Raphael of Urbino, with the tools of his profession and a sheet of paper on which are drawings of the Virgin and the Child with Saint John, and beside him, embracing the artist, the celebrated Fornarina. Another clock, also of gilt bronze and from the Second Empire period, has a base rich-

ly decorated with garlands and cherubs with shields. Above the black clock face is a pair of youths dressed in the Versailles fashion of the reign of Louis XIV. A third clock, from the Romantic period of 1840, has a white marble base with vegetation adornments of gilt bronze on its feet and some dog heads flanking the dial, under which lie a sword, a pike and a hunting horn. Above this body is a bronze sculptural group of a woman on horseback and various dogs running alongside of her. Above one of the writing desks is a French clock (47 x 34 cm) from the mid-19th century, with a stand of white marble and bronze vegetation adornments. It is decorated with a bronze figure of Joan of Arc; the heroine of Orléans, dressed in armour and with a sword in her right hand, is sitting beside the dial, while her helmet and a gauntlet rest above the clock face.

The most interesting feature of this hall, however, is the group of 15 tapestries woven at the Real Fábrica in Madrid and placed on deposit in this building by the Patrimonio Nacional on 9th October 1939. Made with silk and wool threads, most of them were made after sketches painted by Francisco de Goya (17461828) between 1777 and 1787, while the others follow models by other artists who worked in the service of the royal manufacturer during this period.

The tour of the tapestries begins at the southwest corner, moving from left to right. Next to the entrance is a narrow tapestry (260 x 28 cm) of A Resting ‘Majo’, sitting on a rock with his back to the viewer, woven after a model by José del Castillo (1737-1793). Next is a Still Life (73 x 125 cm; Held nº 222) that used as a model the upper section of a work painted by José del Castillo in 1774 for the Bed Chamber of the Princes of Asturias in El Escorial, now in the Museo del Prado. The composition consists of two partridges, a hare, various bunches of grapes and grapevines, a cage, a trunk dry wood and a fragment of classical architecture consisting of an entablature and Ionic capital, that speak of the artist’s taste for all things classical after his extended stay in Rome on a grant from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.

The next tapestry is The Stroll in Andalusia or The ‘Maja’ and the Cloaked Men (260 x 178 cm), made after a well-known work that Goya produced in August of 1777 for the Dining Hall of the Princes of Asturias in the Palace of El Pardo and which, like the other products of his brushstrokes on which the tapestries in this hall are based, is kept in the Museo del Prado (nº 771). The scene constitutes a paradigm of extraordinary colouring, visible in the suits of the cloaked individuals and the maja who walks with one of them in a setting of leafy trees, behind which is a sky of intense blue. Goya himself described the work in the following terms: ‘A stroll in Andalusia among pine trees, in which a gypsy man and woman walk and a wit that was sitting with his cape and round hat, his scarlet cloth trousers with epaulettes and braids of gold, stockings and corresponding shoes, seems to have directed some piece of gallantry toward the gypsy woman, causing her companion to stop and quarrel with him, while the gypsy woman tries to stop him.’

The Young Woman with Pitcher (260 x 93 cm; Held nº 96), after a model by Ramón Bayeu (1746-1793) now in the Museo del Prado, shows a young woman carrying a pitcher on her head and holding a girl by the hand, while behind her a man, with his back to the viewer, gets water from a fountain. The tapestry has a serious error in the woman’s right arm, which seems to be in front of the vessel she bears, which thus could not be placed on her head. The Grape Harvest or Autumn (260 x 180 cm) is woven after the famous piece by Goya in the Museo del Prado (nº 795) and was made between 1786 and early 1787 among the second series of tapestries destined for the Dining Hall of the Princes of Asturias in El Pardo, although José Luis Sancho (El Palacio de Carlos III en El Pardo, Madrid, 2002, 128) affirms that it was intended for the ‘audience room of Carlos III’, along with the tapestries of The Threshing Floor, The Grape Harvest, The Injured Bricklayer and The Snowfall. It depicts a couple sitting on a low wall accompanied by a boy who raises his arms in a soliciting gesture towards a girl carrying a basket of grapes on her head. In the middle ground various grape pickers work in a landscape that, in the background, blends into the white clouds of the sky.

There are various works on the longest wall of the hall, beginning with Woman with Pitcher (260 x 93 cm), a narrow tapestry after a sketch by Andrés de la Calleja inspired by the works of Teniers. In it, a woman carries a vessel supported on her hip, while in the background two men talk by a river and some houses. There is also The Fishermen and the Good Woman (260 x 182 cm; Held nº 397) after a work by Zacarías González Velázquez (1763-1834) now on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 5708) at the Spanish Embassy in The Hague; here, in front of the ruins of a port with boats, a young woman, bearer of a large basket with fish, speaks with a sitting lad who fishes, while two others converse. All of the figures demonstrate the artist’s characteristic language.

The widest tapestry (260 x 628 cm) of those woven by the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara is, without a doubt, The Threshing Floor or Summer, an outstanding creation by Goya made at the

end of 1786 and the first months of 1787 and also destined for the Dining Hall of the Princes of Asturias in El Pardo. Known also as August, the scene, which is the only version made into a tapestry of the famous image by Goya now in the Museo del Prado (nº 794), shows a peasant working in the threshing floor in the vicinities of a castle, while some boys place the sheaves in a cart, as the horses, portrayed with a certain humanized touch, rest. The right half of the composition is filled with a number of reapers who seem to be celebrating the end of the work. The atmospheric sensation of heat is very well rendered thanks to the golden tones of light, which even go so far as to suggest the dust of the threshing floor.

The next tapestry is after a work that José del Castillo painted in 1776 for the Antechamber of the Princes in El Escorial and which is now on deposit from the Museo del Prado at the Spanish Embassy in Lima. With figures very close in style to those by Zacarías González Velázquez, it is titled Hauling the Seine Net (260 x 182 cm; Held nº 228) and depicts two fishermen attempting to hoist a seine net onto the shore, while on the right, where possibly a section is missing, a boy appears with a basket and in the background some trees are visible in middle of the water. The last work on the wall is the narrow tapestry of A Hunter (260 x 32 cm; Held nº 249), after a work realized in 1787 by José del Castillo and now on deposit from the Museo del Prado at the Spanish Embassy in London. The scene depicts a man in the woods with a gun and game bag against a background of branches.

On the other stretch of wall, Children Playing at Bullfighting, also of large dimensions (260 x 440 cm; Held nº 123), is after a model by Francisco Bayeu now in the Museo del Prado. In this work, a child carried on the shoulders of another jabs at a make believe bull borne by a third boy, while the three of these are surrounded by other children, one with a pair of banderillas, another on the ground and two more raising up their arms. The entire scene takes place in the presence of some young men and women in an open landscape with trees placed in different planes. A work by the doorway (73 x 125 cm; Held nº 14), after a model by Ginés Andrés de Aguirre (1727-1800) (others have mistakenly attributed it to José del Castillo) on deposit from the Museo del Prado at the Spanish Embassy in The Hague, portrays a Still Life with a hare and a crane placed on a cloth by a rock, while a cat and a wicker basket appear behind these, as well as an excellent cloudscape with trees. Another narrow work follows, by an unknown artist, of a thin Tree (260 x 27 cm) all but bare of branches against a background of mountains.

Two more tapestries are located between the windows. The Washer Women (260 x 147 cm), after a work by Goya (Museo del Prado, nº 786) delivered in January of 1780 for the antechamber of the Palace of El Pardo, depicts a young woman sleeping on the banks of a river, while two others attempt to wake her up by dangling a little lamb near her face. Two other young women are behind them, one with a bundle of clothes on her head; further in the background are a river and some trees. The Swing (260 x 145 cm), also woven after a famous image by Goya (Museo del Prado, nº 285), was made in July of 1779 for the same space as the previous work. It depicts a girl sitting on a swing hanging from a tree, surrounded by a number of children and two women. In the background is a landscape with other people and a sky of blue tones and white clouds. It is a scene of enormous tenderness, above all in the representation of an exquisitely dressed child attired as if he were an English aristocrat. THE HALL OF AUDIENCES

This hall, which in a plan dated 3rd August 1853, appears listed as the ‘Office of the Lord Minister of War’ and later was occupied by the minister of the Army, is now used for the staging of official audiences given by the Chief of Staff. It was also the scene of meetings of some ministers’ councils between 1930 and 1931, a time during which the presidency of the government was assumed by the then also minister of War, General Berenguer. It has also been used, and is still fitted out as the office of the minister of Defence.

The doors, in the Empire style and of dark tones with delicate ornamental motifs on gilt wood, are adorned in the upper section with mythological figures of exquisite elegance and cloths of great refinement, flanked by peacocks, vegetation motifs and winged beings, in carved wood, painted white or gilt. Other similar figures are visible above the mirror, in this case in company with winged horses. Slender columns reach to the ceiling and are topped by svelte capitals of the Corinthian order.

The ceiling, richly decorated with paintings on gesso in the style of Pompeii, shows various scenes of clear classical inspiration that, set in a frieze and within an architectural framework, very clearly refer to the period of the palace’s construction, or more accurately, to the ornamentation commissioned by Godoy. Thus, for example, the scene of the Aldobrandini Wedding appears in inverted form, one of the most celebrated of the Roman decorative paintings from the time of Augustus, which is preserved in the Vatican Museums. Other motifs are taken from the well-known frieze of the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, from the friezes of Boscoreale, and the scenes from Herculaneum,

known by way of the five volumes of Le antichità di Ercolano, published between 1757 and 1779, etc. Under false white curtains tied to slender columns, various elegantly poised feminine figures alternate with delicate and stylized floral groups. To all of this are added, in something of a contrast, the emblems of the four medieval military orders (Santiago, Calatrava, Montesa and Alcántara), as well as the more recent ones of Saint Ferdinand and Saint Hermenegild, which were established in the second half of the 19th century, the moment when the paintings, or at least the addition of these heraldic emblems, were realized.

The large, 19th century lamp is of gilt bronze and consists of eight arms in the lower body, while on the upper body are four winged figures crowned by a fifth that plays a trumpet and on whose pennant appears the coat of arms of Castile and León. On the walls are some wall lamps of gilt bronze with vegetation motifs.

There are eight mahogany armchairs with gilt bronze ornamentation of feminine busts and vegetation motifs in the Empire style. Upholstered in red velvet, they form a group with two large sofas, one of which, according to tradition, received the wounded body of General Prim shortly after the attempt made on his life.

On a white marble chimney decorated with semi-precious stones on its front side, is a gilt bronze clock from the 19th century, signed on its dial by the brothers Raingo in Paris, who later, in 1841, also manufactured bronze ornamentations in addition to clocks. The cen-

The Hall of Audiences. tral body of the timepiece rests above a beautifully decorated rectangular pedestal, and is flanked by two soldiers of Ingenieros, with different weapons and tools at their feet. There are also flags, cannons and a small castle that form a composition very appropriate to the military setting. It forms a group with a pair of candelabras, also of gilt bronze and of French manufacture, whose shaft is supported by a collection of weapons and helmets and crowned by an emblematic small castle similar to that of the clock.

The most notable piece of furnishing is the writing desk (84 x 200 x 87 cm), whose top is supported by eight thin columns with bronze capitals that are in turn supported by a single block. The upper desk surface, which is adorned with a gilt bronze border, has a plaque with the following inscription: ‘Reinando Alfonso XII / en 1878 / y por acuerdo del Consejo Supremo de Guerra y Marina, / siendo presidente el conde de Vistahermosa, / se restauró esta mesa / en la cual presidía sus sesiones / la Católica Real Magestad de Felipe V’. According to this text, which must be based on a belief concerning the origins of the table, the piece should date to the first half of the 18th century, which is totally impossible considering its current aspect, which corresponds to the Empire style of the early 19th century and not to the period of Philip V, which was richer in ornamentation. It is possible, therefore, that the plaque refers exclusively to the upper writing surface or, possibly, to another table altogether. In imitation of this piece, but of more modern manufacture, is a small, circular table whose top has a gilt bronze border and rests on four pairs of thin columns.

Two bronze mid-19th century figures represent 16th century German warriors (61 x 18 cm), one with a bow resting on

the ground and the other (63 x 17 cm) loading his musket with gun powder. They are works by the French bronze worker Dèniere, established in Paris and who supplied a singular clientele, including kings and noblemen from around Europe, with decorative sculptures.

Also shown here is a cast iron Allegory of Justice (48 x 49 x 23 cm), by an unknown artist, possibly from the end of the 19th century; the feminine figure is sitting on a bench with the Tables of the Law at her feet, although the symbolic balance is missing.

The carpet is a valuable piece made in 1904 by the Real Fábrica in Madrid under the direction of Livinio Stuyck, as indicated on its border.

THE DON QUIXOTE HALL

In the mid-19th century, this hall served as a study and is said to be the location where General Prim died. Later, it was the scene of the meetings held by the Council of Ministers of the Second Republic at Buenavista when the then minister of War, Manuel Azaña, was head of the government and thus president of the council. Its name derives from the series of tapestries inspired in the exploits of the famous nobleman from La Mancha created by the renowned pen of Cervantes.

Formerly separated from the vestibule by a stained glass door and nowadays by a large glass door mounted over a structure of gilt metal, the hall’s ceiling is very richly decorated in the Pompeii style with three friezes, one of which has panels of two sizes in which vases and incense burners alternate with different fantastic heads. Another frieze consists of 16 medallions surrounded by garlands of flowers containing various feminine figures of an allegorical nature that seem to float in a clear blue sky with slightly rosy and yellowish coloured clouds. A third frieze of vegetation ornamentation acts as a frame for the central panel embellished with works that imitate fine lacework. Upon examining the distribution of the decoration, one reaches the conclusion that the hall was originally larger in size, given that the painting is interrupted on the wall that communicates with the antechamber, with a vertical panel depicting seven medallions of decreasing size with figures of a similar character, but of very inferior artistic quality. In effect, the space now occupied by the Dining Hall corresponded in the mid-19th century to the bedchamber, which was separated from the study by a thin dividing wall.

The large, gilt bronze and cut crystal chandelier that lights the hall is in the Empire style and has cane decorations. The lovely furnishings, meanwhile, are in tone with the 18th century tapestries, particularly a table attached to the wall in the manner of a console that imitates the style of Louis XIV, but which is in fact modern. There are also various armchairs, more curved, in the style of Louis XV, and other modern pieces. A polychrome vase with floral motifs on white background stands on a table.

A pair of candelabras has bases decorated with a French porcelain plaque in which Cupid appears, while the shaft is a cherub who, crowned with garlands, holds up a branch from where the lights shine. There is also another pair of candelabras with figures of children, on a white marble pedestal adorned with gilt bronze, who hold a plant shoot from which five arms with candles branch out. Between these last two pieces there is a French clock in the style of Louis XVI dating from the mid-18th century and which consists of rectangular bluish marble base to which are added various works of gilt bronze and blue porcelain with floral motifs; two gilt bronze cherubs in counterpoise flank the clock’s machinery, while the timepiece is crowned by an elegant blue porcelain amphora with handles in the form of feminine heads, also of gilt bronze.

There is a cast iron group with gilt adornments (64 x 57 x 36 cm) from the second half of the 19th century that forms the Combat between Knights, showing a medieval knight on horseback fighting against another who has fallen to the ground, both dressed in armour. The work is by an anonymous artist but is reminiscent of the creations of the Frenchmen Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875) and Jean-François Gechter (1796-1844) for its romantic character and for the attention paid to the movement of the horse.

Some of the tapestries that decorate this hall are part of a deposit made by the Patrimonio Nacional on 28th March 1932 and were hung by Livinio Stuyck y Milllenet, then director of the Fábrica de Tapices. Some years later, in 1940 and 1941, the deposits were renewed.

The tapestries, which were woven from silk and wool thread at the Madrid workshop of Santa Bárbara in the mid18th century, reproduce the paintings made after 1724 by the Roman Andrea Procaccini (1671-1734) and, especially, by his compatriot and student, Domenico Maria Sani (1690-1773), who would later become court painter to the king. It should be remembered that Procaccini was invited to come and work in Spain in 1720, during the reign of Philip V, and served until his death as the general director of works at the Real Sitio de La Granja de San Ildefonso, as well

A detail from the ceiling of the Don Quixote Hall, with one of the tapestries.

as court painter, king’s quartermaster and, occasionally, the artistic director of the recently created Real Fábrica de Tapices de Santa Bárbara.

All of the tapestries, which have been studied by Albert Calvert (1922:10), present a notable uniformity of style and composition, with large scenes framed by a broad border with columns covered by abundant vegetation motifs, as well as lambrequins, shields and allegorical figures. As for the choice of Cervantes as subject matter, it should be noted, as has Morales y Marín (1994:63), that this was not mere chance, but rather the consequence of the extraordinary popularity of the character of Don Quixote in European artistic circles, as much in painting as in metal work and particularly in the field of tapestry, as shown by the series woven at the French workshop of Gobelins and Beauvais. Following this trend, the Real Fábrica in Madrid produced three series concerning Cervante’s tale.

Just as in the previous halls, the tour begins at the southwest corner, here with a tapestry that narrates the scene of the Sancho’s Tossing (387 x 415 cm), in which the fat squire is tossed in the air by various individuals, in front of the attentive gaze of others standing at the door of the inn, while the knight from La Mancha appears in the background. The border consists of two winged figures that flank a sign which reads: ‘Don Quijote, su fama y su victoria de Amadís lloran la engañosa historia’; and two columns with capitals and vegetation motifs among which are parts of armour and, lower down, some horns of plenty; the other tapestries repeat the same bordering.

Continuing on the right, there is the view of Don Quixote Hanging by a Hand (365 x 192 cm), hung on a breach in a wall, accompanied by the indifferent presence of Rocinante and other figures in the background. The next scene is Don Quixote’s Exit (365 x 192 cm) in which Alonso Quijano appears dressed in armour and bearing a lance in his right hand, galloping on the back of the white Rocinante and under a winged representation of Fame who holds a banner that reads: ‘Don Quijote de la Mancha, el valeroso desfacedor de agravios más glorioso’. In the background is a village.

Hanging on the following wall is the story of Don Quixote in the Cage (370 x 450 cm), in which the hero appears on a cart drawn by oxen and surrounded by the masked gang members. In the background is an inn with various figures, while in the foreground two pilgrims contemplate the scene. The last tapestry narrates the scene of the Mambrino’s Helmet (315 x 210 cm), in which Don Quixote thrusts with his lance against the barber who, also on horseback, wears a barber’s bowl on his head, while Sancho raises his arms in astonishment.

THE PRIM HALL

First used perhaps as a music salon, it later became the Urrutia Hall in recognition of the illustrious 18th century military man. The present name comes from the fact that it was on one of the sofas in this hall that the wounded body of General Juan Prim y Prats (1814-1870) was placed, at that time minister of War in Serrano’s cabinet, shortly after an attempt on Prim’s life had taken place in the nearby Turco Street (now, Marqués de Cubas Street) on 27th December 1870, and which, three days later, would result in his

The Prim Hall.

death. Almost at the same time, King Amadeus I of Savoy, for whose right to occupy the Spanish throne Prim had fought, entered Spain for the first time.

The ceiling is painted with amusing allegories of the Four Seasons with couples of putti against landscapes and under arches topped by eagles. Various false architectural elements frame some compartments before which hang false tapestries of four young flying women, dressed in fine fabrics that undulate in the wind. Each is flanked by another two hangings that seem to be tied to some supports and in which numerous objects related to music are depicted, linked in a vertical sense and delineated with soft lines. The central painting, in which vases of flowers appear over simulated horns, shows an opening of sky in which two cherubs fly with musical

instruments, while the sky is framed by a curtain drawn back by cords tied in a semicircle. In some details, the composition is reminiscent of the style of Luis Yappelli, very active in royal settings at the end of the 18th century, although the present scene is of quite inferior quality to those realized by the Italian decorator. All of this leads one to think that the work was in fact made in the mid-19th century, although following the aesthetic norms of previous decades.

The 19th century gilt bronze and crystal lamp is Isabelline in style, with numerous arms that end in lights. The wall lamps are very old and still bear the gas stopcocks that once fed their flames.

The hall is presided over by a good portrait (122 x 91 cm) of the famous Catalan military man, General Prim, painted in 1889 by Enrique Esteban Vicente (18491927), an artist from Salamanca who was educated in Madrid and lived there for most of his life working as a genre painter, graphic illustrator and also portraitist, with several of his works in official institutions. The canvas, signed in the lower right (‘E. Estevan/1889’), shows the illustrious soldier a bit more than half body, dressed in uniform ‘without stripes other than on his cuffs (…), two shiny badges on the left side...’ as Pérez Galdós described him in the volume that bears his name in the celebrated Episodios nacionales. He wears the sash of general and the badges of the Laureate Grand Cross of Saint Ferdinand and of Charles III. His left hand rests on his sable and his right holds his cap, while the diffuse landscape of the background keeps one’s attention focused on the figure of the marquis of the Castillejos and count of Reus, portrayed here with almost photographic realism. There is also a notable version of the portrait of Queen Isabella II (123 x 93 cm), painted by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz (1815-1894) in 1844 by commission of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and which served as an official portrait of the sovereign for some years. Portrayed in a bit more than half body and dressed in a white ceremonial dress, Isabella II wears the bands of the orders of Maria Christina and Charles III, among others, and sports on her breast a large brooch with fat pearls. Her head is covered by an embroidered veil and her left hand holds a glove, while the right rests on a table where the royal crown and sceptre rest on a red pillow. The background consists of a large column with a gilt bronze base alongside the entrance to a chamber, a curtain and two feminine figures that make up part of the throne. The well-executed painting is almost identical to one in the Town Hall of Granada painted by Madrazo in 1845 when the queen was 15 years old. The work nonetheless seems a bit flat to be the work of the Madrid-born master, and is thus perhaps a good workshop copy, maybe by Germán Hernández Amores (1823-1894), from Murcia.

A canvas representing The Battle of Tétouan (190 x 321 cm) is of larger dimensions, and depicts the Moroccan army on the left, while the Spanish troops, who appear to arrive from far away among clouds of dust, occupy more than half of the painting. The central equestrian figure of General Prim, sable in hand, spurs on the Catalan volunteers and soldiers of the Batallón de Alba de Tormes to fight. In the background, a group of military men are presided over by General O’Donnell, mounted on his characteristic dapple-grey horse. With its clear concessions to the treatment of the landscape, the painting, which is unsigned, brings to mind the canvas painted in 1864 by the Catalan Francisco Sans y Cabot (1828-1864) for the Provincial Deputation of Barcelona, with the intention of remembering in a graphic way the decisive battle fought near the African city on 4th and 5th February 1860.

Various sculptures complete the decoration of the hall. A mid-19th century bust (80 x 53 x 20 cm) by the Frenchman J. Rodon Faure depicts Bacchus according to some, or an Allegory of Spring to others. Cast in bronze, it rests on some vegetation motifs. It has a double flute and is crowned by a bunch of grapes of luminous contrast. The work of best quality, however, is the small bronze (44 x 47 x 27 cm) titled Spring, or also Woman and Flowers, which is signed on the right side (‘Miguel Blay / París’) by the sculptor Miguel Blay y Fábregas (18661936), from Girona. Blay, who achieved great success for his feminine figures and monuments, won the first medal at the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts in 1892 and 1897 and the medal of honour in 1908, having been the director of the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in Madrid. This piece is a bronze reproduction of a somewhat smaller size of a marble original that the Catalan artist realized during his first Paris period and which today is in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Barcelona. Representing a young woman in half body, it is a faithful example of the special delicacy of Blay’s feminine models, which generally have a sad look on their faces. The flowers carried in the hands of the girl speak of all that deep symbolism of which the Catalan artist was a master, while the formal treatment of the fabrics and vegetation motifs reflect the clear ties of the artist with Art Nouveau. A Lancer of 1846 (46 x 17 x 34 cm) has also been incorporated, a piece made of polyester resin by the already mentioned Luis Sánchez López. There is also a bust (31 x 17 x 20 cm) of the King John Charles I, realized in plaster with a green patina by the sculptor Carlos Beltrán in 1975.

In addition to the round central table, used for meals with reduced numbers of guests, there are various armchairs and chairs in imitation of the Louis XVI style, as well as a console and cabinet, two modern pieces in the same style.

THE HALL OF THE AMBASSADORS

This hall is one of the most spacious of the palace’s main floor. In the mid-19th century it was known as the Hall of Pedro Navarro, a famous 16th century military engineer. It has a vaulted ceiling totally covered by frescos, which, like those of the other halls, has been carefully restored. The decoration, whose quality is certainly not of the first order although it contributes to maintaining the atmosphere of the Isabelline period, presents a geometric compartmentalization by way of square panels of various finely traced motifs.

The group is presided over by a wide central space with false coffering of a well achieved perspective and other panels with fine vegetation motifs in the style of Pompeii. In the areas corresponding to the narrowest sides of the hall and between slender columns are two vases with military trophies. In the corners, meanwhile, is a pair of winged beings flanked by Renaissance-styled flower vases.

On the long sides of the hall, between pairs of thin, white columns with rings on their shafts and capitals adorned with acanthus leaves, are representations of the Army and the Navy between curtains held back by red cords. The Army is depicted as a sitting feminine figure, with a red cloak and fine white dress, crowned by laurels, with an olive branch in her right hand and a foot on a fasces, or bundle of staffs

The Hall of the Ambassadors.

used by the Roman consuls as a sign of distinction. By her side is a large shield crowned by laurel and held up by a cherub, in whose area is a helmet with a crest. Beside the plinth on which the shield rests are the different elements of a military trophy. The symbolic representation of the Navy consists of a young woman also crowned by laurels, standing and with a yellow cape over a fine white tunic. She rests her right arm on a four-pointed anchor while holding a serpent in her right hand and an incense burner with flames in her left hand. Behind her is a ship and in the lower section on the opposite side is a basket with fruit and flowers. These symbolic figures are flanked by various false niches holding large vases with garlands of flowers. Alternating on each side of these, in the area that points toward the interior of the building, are four representations in the form of marmoreal busts of four great Spanish captains: Hernán Cortés, the Gran Capitán, Hugo de Moncada and Antonio de Leiva, some full face, others in profile. In the area that points to the exterior of the building, the portrayed individuals are all illustrious sailors: Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Álvaro de Bazán, John of Austria and Ferdinand Magellan. In this way, the Army and the Navy are brought together in the ornamentation of the vault of this great hall.

The walls are covered with red cloth and match the curtains to create a vivid contrast with the white lacquered doors and gilt ornamentation in the classical style. The furniture, for its part, consists of various sofas and armchairs in the Louis XV style of gilt wood and red velvet upholstery, but made in the 19th century. Large mirrors with simple borders of gilt wood are located in a balanced way around the spacious hall. A round table in the style of Louis XVI, with six columns of the Ionic order, has a streaked white marble top. The three gilt wood console tables in the Louis XVI style also have streaked white marble tops and are adorned with a vase between their legs.

A large 19th century, gilt bronze lamp hangs from the ceiling and consists of two levels of lights that extend from arms decorated with dragons and panoplies formed by shields, flags, lances, axes and swords. Four wall lamps of gilt bronze, meanwhile, are each copies of the arms of the ceiling lamp. A French clock from the first half of the 19th century sits above a white marble chimney. The green marble timepiece, signed on its dial by Marquis in Paris, is adorned in gilt bronze and topped by an incense burner. It is flanked by a pair of candelabras from the end of the 19th century, formed by a pedestal of gilt bronze, above which is a porcelain vase of Sèvres blue with gilt vegetation motifs and pastoral scenes in the oval medallions of the central area. Seven arms rise out of the upper area and are adorned with gilt bronze vegetation motifs with lights.

A large gilt bronze clock rests on the console in front, made in the mid-19th century in the Madrid establishment of the French clockmaker P. Prévost, on Alcalá Street, number 3. Its dial is surrounded by various standards, which appear from behind some shields bearing the shields of the Spanish kingdoms. Notable among the ornamentation is a Roman coat of mail flanked by two rampant lions and a helmet with crest. This is accompanied by two gilt bronze candelabras of the same period, which rest on three clawed feet and have a support in the form of vegetation covered by different military prizes and topped by six arms with lights. Another two pairs of identical candelabras are found on the console tables placed between the windows of the same stretch of wall.

There are also two small equestrian sculptures on two of the console tables. One (43 x 43 x 13 cm without the base) represents the King Alfonso XII, dressed in uniform and mounted on an elegant parading horse whose reins the sovereign holds in his left hand. An inscription on the base reads ‘A. XII / restaurador y pacificador / de la monarquía española’; there is also a mark on the centre of the underside that clarifies its origins (‘Cía. Mª de San Juan de Alcaraz / 1886’), while the serial number (‘Nº 33’) appears to one side. In effect, the piece was cast in bronze at the installations of the Compañía Minera de San Juan de Alcaraz in 1886, taking as a model the plaster original that is in the Museo del Ejército. As much the marvellous treatment of the horse, with its graceful head and slender body, as the extreme detail of the uniform, particularly the boots, the Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand and the Medal of the Northern Campaign, and all of the details of the figure of the king, bring to mind the modus operandi of the Valencian Mariano Benlliure. It is said of him that on 14th January 1875, while still but a child, he had the opportunity of witnessing the triumphal entrance into Madrid of Alfonso XII (of whom he would later make in 1902 the equestrian representation that tops the monument dedicated to the same sovereign in the Parque del Retiro in Madrid), and went about modelling a figure in plaster of the king that was later publicly exhibited on the premises of the old Platería Martínez. Upon being viewed by the count of Toreno, the nobleman managed to have the young artist presented to the king along with his sculpture, and the king then placed the piece on his office desk, giving Benlliure the sum of 500 pesetas.

The other sculpture (82 x 63 x 37 cm), also of bronze, is definitely the work of Mariano Benlliure (1862-1947) and represents the King Alfonso XIII on horseback, with the artist’s signature (‘M. Benlliure’) on the left side of the pedestal. The monarch, dressed in a uniform modelled with extreme detail, appears mounted on his favourite horse with his sable raised in his right hand in salute, while he holds the reins in his left hand. The pedestal is adorned with four small castles on its corners and is quite reminiscent of the monument dedicated to Alfonso XII in the Retiro in Madrid for the naturalism of the ground. On the front section is the inscription: ‘¡Viva el Rey / Alfonso XIII!’, while on the back one can read: ‘1886-1902’, in allusion to the date of birth and coming of age of the young monarch, with the symbols of the kingdoms of Castile, León, Navarre, Aragon and Granada also present, as well as the royal crown. The statue, of which a replica exists in the Museo del Ejército and which repeats many of the details of the one of Alfonso XII on the before mentioned monument, was made by Benlliure in 1905 on the occasion of the visit to Madrid of the President of the French Republic, Émile Loubet. According to Quevedo Pessanha (1947:221-222), the City Council of the capital commissioned the Valencian artist to make an equestrian sculpture of the sovereign to give to the illustrious visitor on the occasion of his visit.

Two portraits hang on the walls of this room. The first depicts Charles III (140 x 111 cm), showing slightly more than half of his body. The work is a copy of the well-known image of the monarch painted in 1761 by the Bohemian painter Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), which today hangs in the Museo del Prado. Consecrated as an official portrait, there were soon numerous copies made by disciples and collaborators of the first painter of the Court, from Maella and Bayeu to Andrés de la Calleja, with excellent ones preserved in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes and that of Historia, the Ministry of Internal Revenue, the Bank of Spain, the Royal Palace, the Sociedad Económica Matritense, etc. For many years considered the work of Mariano Salvador Maella, the painting portrays the king dressed in half armour and holding a sceptre in his right hand. He wears a sword around his waist and a general’s sash, while various bands cross his chest, among them the Order of Charles III, as well as the necklace of the Golden Fleece and of the order that bears his name. With his left hand he points to the background, while the royal cloak of red velvet lined with ermine and decorated with castles, lions and fleur-de-lis lies on the table. To the left is a yellowish curtain; the background, meanwhile, is composed of simple architecture with the lower part of a column, all exactly the same as in the original canvas by Mengs. The similitude is also visible in the pomposity and flattering tone, in keeping with the aesthetics of the Baroque, as well as in the ugly but good-natured and human face of the king.

The second portrait shows John Charles I (118 x 90 cm) and was painted in 1979 by Alfredo Enguix de Andrés. Represented in three-quarter view, the monarch wears the full-dress uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Army and displays the Golden Fleece and the blue band with white borders of the necklace of the Order of Charles III, whose badge he also wears on his chest along with the three important crosses of Merit of the Army, Navy and Air Force. The quality of the work, however, is somewhat lacking and the pose is a bit stiff. THE ANTEROOM, OR LOBBY OF THE DINING HALL

The small space prior to the Dining Hall constitutes one of the most elegant and sumptuous areas of the main floor of the palace. It is covered by an elegant barrel vault with coffers decorated with gilt vegetation motifs against a white background, while the walls scenes in relief with light toned figures outlined in gold. The compositions are religious in nature, inspired by the classical world and with characters in sharp profile. The lamp, of gilt bronze and crystal, is in the Empire style, although it was made at a later date. There are various armchairs and benches that imitate the style of Louis XV, as well as a pair of modern cabinets in the 18th century style, with gallant scenes painted on their fronts. Two Sèrvres style porcelain vases (57 x 30 cm) are placed on these and date from the first half of the 19th century. They are decorated with bucolic scenes and have gilt metal bases and lips.

There are two portraits of Ferdinand VII. The one of the monarch shown a bit more than half body (148 x 115 cm), dressed in the uniform of the Cavalry with blue dress coat, yellow chamois trousers and high riding boots is by the hand of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). The monarch wears the sash of general around his waist and the Golden Fleece around his neck, while the band of the Royal Order of Charles III crosses his chest, the badge of which is on his left side along with that of Saint Ferdinand and another unidentifiable one. He holds a two-cornered hat under his right arm and rests his left hand on the hilt of his sable. The background consists of a fairly neutral cloud-scape with a low horizon and a battlefield with various horsemen and horses. Although it is not signed, the painting is consid-

The Anteroom, or Lobby of the Dining Hall.

ered to be an authentic work by Goya, who made here a copy with some variations of the full body portrait of the king dressed in similar military attire now in the Museo del Prado (207 x 140 cm; nº 724). It is possible that this painting at Buenavista, which may be dated to 1814 after the return of the ‘Desired King’, was at first a full body portrait, which was then reduced in size for reasons that are not known. The face, with its hair brushed forward in the fashion of the early 19th century, the accented prognathism of the chin and the wide open but inexpressive eyes, offers a considerably ordinary and unappealing vision of the monarch, notwithstanding the apparent obligatory adulation of a court painter. Goya, however, never disguised his dislike for the king and avoided any attempt to diminish either the wellknown ugliness or the awkward nature of his model, who, in turn, tried at all costs to avoid posing for the artist. The artist’s technique, on the other hand, is executed with great care and his use of colour manages to bring the portrait to life, above all through the reddish touches that contrast with the yellow of the trousers and stripes, as well as with the blue of the uniform and the sky. The other portrait of Ferdinand VII (144 x 107 cm), by Vicente López Portaña (1772-1850), dates from 20 years later and depicts the stout and fortyish monarch a bit more than half body, dressed in the uniform of a general with the Golden Fleece on his chest and the bands and badges of the royal orders of Charles III and Saint Ferdinand. He holds his gloves and sceptre in his right hand, while in his left hand he presses his two-cornered hat against his body. On the right, behind the portly figure, is part of a column with its base, as well as a curtain, while on the left and in the foreground there is a table with

various books, one titled Reales Órdenes and another Orden Militar, and behind, a background of a diffuse landscape. The Valencian artist’s signature and the date (‘Vte Lopez ft. 1834’) are on the right, with the date curiously signed a year after the king’s death, thus making it possible to affirm that this was the last portrait made of the king. The painting, which seems to have arrived at Buenavista from the Consejo Supremo de Guerra y Marina (later changed to the Consejo Supremo de Justicia Militar), is representative of the work made by the then first painter of the Court of His Majesty and director of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, above all in his mature period, when he painted with great detail ornaments and decorations and even the books that he often placed alongside his subjects. The tired, goodnatured appearance of the king, whose chin is less pronounced than in earlier portraits, goes almost unnoticed among the details Vicente López painted of the uniform and decorations, as well as the perfectly rendered curtains in the background.

Two sketches for tapestries by Zacarías González Velázquez (1763-1834) provide the room with a colourful 18th century touch. Made in 1785 under the direction of Maella to serve as models for the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara for two tapestries destined for ‘the ladies room of the bedroom of the princess of Asturias’ in the Palace of El Pardo in Madrid, they are property of the Museo del Prado (nº 5710 and 5705), which placed them on deposit at Buenavista at the same time as the two previous works. The one titled Two Fishermen (174 x 135 cm; Held nº 399) consists, according to the description by the painter, of ‘two men, one sitting with the fishing poles in his hand, the other leaning back on a rock with a fishing pole in his hand, while in front of them on the ground is a basket with three fish’; the sky is blue and the clouds are white. A tapestry made after this model is now in the rooms of the Bourbons at the Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The other (174 x 135 cm; Held nº 406) is titled Figures before a Cliff and is composed of a background of sky with clouds before which appear ‘a sitting man and woman, the woman with a child in her arms, beside a cliff’ with various plants and trees almost without branches. Following this model, a tapestry was made that is now in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Both sketches are treated with the soft colouring typical of painting from the mid-18th century, well represented by Zacarías González Velázquez, son of the already mentioned Antonio González Velázquez, who became Court painter in 1801 and general director of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1828.

The ornamentation is completed by two 19th century feminine busts placed in niches. Carved from white Italian marble, they rest on slender pedestals of the same material that stand on streaked green marble. One of them (85 x 53 x 24 cm), which has some small fractures, represents a young woman with an elegant face, dressed in luxurious garments that rise behind the nape of the neck, in the Florentine style, while the hair is done up in a complicated bun. The piece is signed on the back by Francesco Maria Schiaffino (1689-1765), a Genoese sculptor who made a series of sculptures that continued the Baroque style of the Roman Camillo Rusconi, but which also share some of the charm of the Rococo. The other bust (78 x 50 x 24 cm), of very similar technical characteristics and workmanship, probably by the same artist although it is not signed, portrays a woman with a highly idealized face who is also dressed in elegant attire, a small ruff on her neck and a brooch of precious stones in her décolleté, with her head covered by a hood.

THE GRAND DINING HALL

Mahogany doors with glass panes and simple ornamentation of gilt bronze in the style of Charles III open to the grand dining hall, which, in the mid-19th century, was known as the Verboom Hall in homage to Jorge Próspero, Marquis of that name, a celebrated Spanish military engineer of the 18th century, who was born in Brussels. The ceiling imitates openwork embroidery with workmanship inspired by the Renaissance; from it hangs a crystal lamp in the Empire style with adornments of canes and lyres realized in gilt bronze.

The hall is presided over by a large tapestry (390 x 534 cm) belonging to the Don Quixote series. Woven in the mid18th century at the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara in Madrid after a sketch made by Andrea Procaccini (1671- 1734), it has been on deposit from the Patrimonio Nacional since 1932, along with the other tapestries that adorn the Don Quixote Hall. With a border of wreathed columns on its sides, an inscription reading ‘Desafío al vizcaíno y aventura de los molinos’ in the centre of the upper border and a mask on the lower one, the scene shows Don Quixote mounted on the white Rocinante with a lance in his right hand, speaking with a woman sitting in a carriage. On the left, a friar is stretched out flat on the ground surrounded by various individuals, while on the right there is another group, all of them placed within a landscape. In the background there is the famous scene of the nobleman’s battle with the wind mills.

On the sides of the large tapestry are two candelabras (210 x 34 x 34 cm) of gilt bronze, also placed on deposit from the Patrimonio Nacional. Made in the last quarter of the 19th century at the Parisian workshops of Graux-Marly, which specialized in this type of decorative element, they have feet in the form of goat’s hooves, while various sirens appear on the shaft distributed over two levels. They also have some medallions with the letters G and M interlinked under a ducal crown, and are topped by nine lights installed over floral adornments. An inscription is engraved in the lower section of both pieces indicating the manufacturer: ‘Graux Marly / 8 Rue Parc Royal. Paris’.

On the front wall are two bronze low relief portraits (38.5 x 33 cm) of Their Majesties John Charles I and Sofia in profile, with the signatures of the monarchs and a royal crown in the lower area. They were made around 1980 by the sculptor from Avila, Santiago de Santiago Hernández (b. 1925).

The spacious table is in the style of Ferdinand VII, although it is in fact modern like almost all of the other furnishings, with armchairs and chairs of the same style bearing the characteristic finishing on their backs. In one of the extremes of the dining hall, a carved gilt wood screen is notable, with its four leaves and sheets of white silk decorated with vegetation motifs. Kept previously in the Hall of Porcelains and later in the Teniers Hall, it may be an antique piece from the 18th century, but restored at the end of the 19th century, given that it bears the initials of the King Alfonso XII and of his first wife, Maria de las Mercedes of Orléans.

A 19th century French clock sits on a mahogany console table in the style of Ferdinand VII with four legs in the shape of capitals with canes and feet of gilt bronze lion’s paws. The likewise gilt bronze timepiece is signed on its dial by the brothers Raingo in Paris (‘Raingo Fres / Paris’). It is decorated in the style of Louis XVI with curved legs and vegetation motifs, and is matched by the two slender candelabras of six lights that flank it.

THE VESTIBULE OF THE SHELLS

This elegant space, also known as the Noble Lobby because of its purpose, but might just as well be called the Hall of Battles for the scenes that decorate its walls, is decorated on the corners of its ceiling with shells framed in gilt palms. Under these are the emblems of the four medieval military orders: Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa.

In terms of painting, various works of different styles and periods are present. There are two very interesting compositions of Battles that may be attributed to the Valencian Baroque painter Esteban March (1610-1668), who showed a special attraction for battle scenes with small figures in agitated and violent movement. One of these (43.5 x 60 cm) takes place amid a great quantity of dust

An equestrian statue of King Charles III, by Sergio Blanco.

and smoke, in which the silhouette of some horses in curvet are prominent. In the foreground, some wounded soldiers agonize while in the background, on the left, is a blue sky with white clouds. On the back of the painting is a piece of paper that reads: ‘Esteban Mark, pintor valenciano imitador de la escuela veneciana’. The other scene (41 x 60 cm), of a very similar style, shows a combat between knights, also amid great clouds of dust, with a prominent central figure of a horseman with standard. The evening light with clouds and the smoke of battle are visible on the horizon. A third canvas of a Battle Scene (43 x 68 cm) may also be attributed to Esteban March and depicts soldiers fighting on horseback immersed in clouds of smoke, while on the right another aspect of the battle takes place in the background by a mountain.

Two small works (41 x 52 cm) of brightly coloured Battle Scenes showing various horse men in combat against a background of fighting and a city are also dateable to the 17th century and are very similar in style to works by the Flemish Pieter Meulener (1602-1654) and the Frenchman Jacques Courtois (16211676).

There is also a painting representing La Vicalvarada, by the almost unknown José Carol, about whom Ossorio y Bernard (1883-1884:135) only says that he was a sergeant of the Regimiento de Iberia at the time. In the centre of the painting appears the figure of O’Donnell, dressed in the uniform of general of the Cavalry, accompanied on the right by his Staff, behind whom it is possible to see in the distance troops in formation with flags. On the left, there is a part of a cannon and an Artillery battery, while the background shows the site of Vicálvaro, or of Canillejas, in the area of Madrid, where the general harangued the rebellious troops on 28th June 1854. The artist’s signature is on the lower right of the painting (‘J. Carol. 1.er cuadro / 1 de junio de 1854’), although the date appears to be incorrect, being anterior to the historical date of the scene it depicts, and should thus probably be 1st July.

The furnishings consist of a table, various chairs and modern consoles in the style of Louis XV painted white with gilt adornments, and some Venetian mirrors. On the table there is an equestrian statue of King Charles III, an excellent bronze (89 x 25 x 65 cm) realized in 2004 by Sergio Blanco from Bilbao, a famous singer and self-taught sculptor, who is gifted with an extraordinary skill in giving form as much to uniforms as, in this case, the elegant Spanish horse and the different pieces of gear; the base is signed: ‘SERGIO / BLANCO / MMIV’.

A small bronze statue (32 x 10 x 10 cm) representing a Spanish Soldier of the ‘Cazadores de Infantería’ of 1880 is the work of Luis Sánchez López, a retired military man and sculptor who specializes in creating small sized bronze figures of Spanish soldiers from different periods, with a personal, expressionist treatment of the forms. A small bronze of Hernán Cortés, signed by Antonio Colmeiro is the model of the statue that decorates the palace’s large courtyard.

THE FORMER HALL OF THE ADJUTANTS

In a small office contiguous to the Vestibule of the Shells, previously the Hall of the Adjutants, there is a tapestry (310 x 253 cm) from the 17th century, on deposit from the Patrimonio Nacional since 1940. It belongs to the series known at the Royal Inventories as ‘Galerías de Don Rodrigo’, the ten works of which are distributed among the palaces of El Pardo in Madrid and La Almudaina in Palma de Mallorca, as well as in various official buildings. Possibly woven at the Flemish workshop of Oudenaarde in about 1625, the sketches were likely supplied by Jan Boeckhorst, a disciple of Peter Paul Rubens. It depicts a small temple of Corinthian columns with floral festoons, in the interior of which is a vase with flowers before a landscape background. The border consists of two wreathed columns on the sides, while the upper section has garlands of fruit and a small landscape in a cartouche, there being no base.

The office is presided over by a portrait (152 x 113 cm) of King John Charles I, dressed in the field uniform of the commander-in-chief, which, signed by the Infantry colonel Silvestre Llanos, was awarded the Army Prize for Painting in 1978. It is notable for the natural spontaneity of the figure of the monarch, far from the customarily rigid pose of official portraits.

A painting (120 x 91 cm) of General Francisco Serrano Bedoya (1813-1882), minister of War in 1874, is by the Asturian painter Ignacio Suárez Llanos (18301881), an artist who achieved great fame in the genre of portraiture. The general appears more than half body, dressed in the dress uniform of general and with various bands and decorations, among which are those of the orders of Saint Hermenegild and Isabella the Catholic, and that of Merit of the Army. He holds his sable in his gloved left hand, while his right rests on a table covered by a red cloth upon which sits his two-cornered hat and a piece of paper indicating the general’s identity and signed by the artist (‘Excmo. Sr. D. Fco. Serrano Bedoya, Tnte. Gral. - Suárez Llanos’). The background shows an interior wall with a

chimney and a mirror with an elaborate gold frame.

Also on the wall is a painting (88 x 66 cm) by R.G. Estefani of a scene from the Courtyard of the Alcázar of Toledo, in which the majestic inner courtyard of the military building, destroyed after the siege of 1936, is shown in cold colours.

THE STAIRWAY

From the Vestibule of the Shells, a stairway descends to the entrance hall of the palace, as does a modern elevator.

On one of the walls is a portrait of a general, perhaps Julio de Ardanaz y Crespo, minister of the Army between 1928 and 1930, who is shown in the uniform of division general with extraordinary naturalness. The painting is signed (‘Díaz Molina / 1929’) by the painter José Díaz Molina (1865-1944), from Almería, who achieved success in his portraits and graphic illustrations.

THE GALLERY OF THE CHIEFS OF STAFF OF THE ARMY

A long and narrow corridor, which formerly served as administrative offices, now provides access to the start of the official area, while at the same time serving as a lounge area with some modern three-seaters.

Various sculptures contribute to the ornamentation of the space. Two cast iron figures were made in the second half of the 19th century by the Frenchman Émile-Louis Picault (1833-1915), a famous sculptor and maker of medals who liked to accompany his statues with Latin phrases, which mostly exalted patriotic virtues. One of these (77 x 34 x 23 cm), of a man with helmet, is titled Duty and represents a semi-nude warrior at the moment of unsheathing his sword. Under the figure is a cartouche that reads: ‘Pro aris et focis’, while on the front of the base are the words: ‘Honor. Patria’. The other figure (80 x 29 x 23 cm) is titled Post pugnam and shows another warrior, also semi-nude and wearing a helmet, who, in this case, sheaths his sword. On the lower part, the cartouche reads: ‘Aprés la moisson des lauriers, l’olivier renaitrá plus beau’, while on the front of the base is the Latin phrase that gives the piece its name, with the sculptor’s signature on the right side (‘E. Picault’).

Above a console is a French clock (92 x 56 x 37 cm) from the mid-19th century, with a wood base that houses the Brocot system machinery, and a gilt bronze sculpture signed by Th. Gechter of Joan of Arc mounted on a horse combating another medieval horseman who has fallen to the ground.

The walls serve as gallery for portraits of the generals who, since 1976, have successively served as Chief of Staff of the Army.

A French clock from the mid-19th century, with a gilt bronze sculpture representing Joan of Arc.

THE PRIVATE HALLS

he private area, which consists of various halls, such as those named in the mid-19th century after Balanzat and Sangroniz, and rooms that face the west façade of the building, or else open to the palace’s small courtyard, is accessed by way of the Hall of Ambassadors.

THE HALL OF PORCELAINS

One of the most interesting rooms in the palace, because of the works of art it contains, is the Hall of Porcelains. Its name derives from the fact that it contains various pieces of fine porcelain that are exhibited in a wooden case decorated with gilt carvings. In the mid19th century, when it was known as the Blake Hall, its dimensions were similar to those of the Hall of Ambassadors, but it was divided into three sections after the palace’s enlargement.

The ceiling is decorated with paintings in the Pompeii style, with medallions on the corners that house pairs of sitting cherubs carrying different instruments alluding to astronomy and navigation (globe, compass, telescope, rudder, sundial, etc.), among other occupations. Its style is quite reminiscent of the figures located in the corners of the Prim Hall.

There are three excellent tapestries from the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara on the walls, placed on deposit by the Patrimonio Nacional in 1941. Made in the 18th century after models painted by Andrés de la Calleja, they belong to a series of popular scenes inspired by paintings by the Flemish David Teniers. One of the tapestries is titled Woman Milking a Cow (265 x 230 cm; Held nº 143) and depicts a peasant woman in the middle of his task talking to a standing cowhand on her left. Another woman appears on the right sitting with a pitcher in her left hand, with the entire scene set against a landscape of houses and livestock. A second tapestry (265 x 290 cm; Held nº 160), woven for the Coffee Room of the Palace of El Pardo after a sketch that is preserved in the Castle of Las Navas del Marqués (Ávila), depicts Villagers Leading a Cow, in which a couple walk along a path, with the woman leading a cow tied by a rope. The background consists of a landscape with a church and high mountains. In the third tapestry (265 x 250 cm; Held nº 164), called Gypsy Woman Telling Fortunes, a woman reads a man’s hand who is joined by a child, while another three Gypsy women sit at the foot of a structure that is topped by an obelisk; the background consists of a landscape of trees and a rustic house.

The furniture consists of various sofas, armchairs and chairs in the style of Louis XV, but of modern construction. The lamp is also modern, imitating those of the 18th century made at the Real Fábrica de Cristal de La Granja.

The famous mark of the Saxony porcelain manufacturers of the 18th century, two crossed blue sables, appear on a clock (45 x 22 x 14 cm) with floral ornamentation and four figures of cherubs holding up symbols of the seasons of the year. On the bottom of the clock face, meanwhile, there is a painted scene of an amorous couple in a field, all realized in the soft colouring characteristic of

The Hall of Porcelains.

18th century porcelain. The timepiece is joined by two matching candelabras (34 x 16 x 16 cm) that also bear the marks of Saxony and present similar figures of cherubs, with Spring and Summer forming one couple and Autumn and Winter the other.

The group of painted porcelain cherubs (28 x 25 x 16 cm) dates from the last quarter of the 18th century and comes from the German workshop of Frankenthal, according to the mark on the underside (the letters C and T with a superimposed crown). The group consists of four winged cherubs leaning over a bonfire, into which they throw small branches. Also notable are two amusing figures from Germany, which may have served as spice racks. There are also various ceramic vases, notably a pair (47 x 17 x 17 cm) from the 18th century with the blue mark of the Samson workshop, a French manufacturer that imitated the German pieces of Meissen in the 18th century. Both are decorated with different figurative subjects placed in ovals, with two children appearing on the upper section.

A bust (34 x 17 x 21 cm) of King John Charles I, in plaster with a gold patina, was made in 1970 by the sculptor Carlos Beltrán, when the monarch still held the title of Prince of Spain.

THE BREAKFAST ROOM

Two large tapestries preside over this hall. One of them (300 x 370 cm) is Flemish from the 17th century and belongs to the series known as ‘Galerías de Don Rodrigo’. It was made with silk and wool threads around 1625, possibly at the Flemish workshops of Oudenaarde. It was placed on deposit by the Patrimonio Nacional in 1940 and consists of a small temple with six Corinthian per section of which are a house, a river and a watermill. A Flower Vase (90 x 66 cm) and two Still Lifes of Fruit (33 x 41 cm) of Spanish origin from the 17th and 18th centuries respectively, complete the room’s decoration.

The furnishings consist of various modern chairs in the Queen Anne style, while a large, likewise modern, gilt bronze lamp in the Dutch style illuminates the space.

columns with festoons under which is a vase with flowers and a landscape in the background. The border, which lacks a base, has two wreathed columns on the sides and a small landscape in a cartouche on the upper section. On the opposite wall, another large tapestry (260 x 394 cm) depicting a scene of Diana and the Nymphs, is a French piece from the 18th century and shows the goddess and various of her companions calmly at rest in a lush landscape, all rendered in rich colours.

Among the paintings is a landscape (46 x 84 cm) by the little-known Neapolitan painter Michele Pagano (c. 1637-c. 1736), on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 678) since 1940. Groups of trees frame the central scene in which various small figures appear to be getting ready to cross a river in a boat. In the background, one can make out a city amid the mists and cloudy sky of evening. On the back of the canvas, there are emblems of Queen Elisabeth Farnese and the inscription: ‘Michele Pagano pº genro 1736’. That it previously formed part of the royal collection is supported by the fact that the painting was registered in 1794 in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez as a landscape with ‘a city and a river and a boat tied to a trunk’, and is furthermore confirmed by the white fleur-de-lis on the lower right. The legend on the back of the canvas is of great interest because it dates the artist’s last known work to 1736, until now thought to have ended circa 1732.

There is also a Rocky Landscape with River and Mill (50 x 86 cm), on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 1594) also since 1940, which is considered to be from the Flemish school and related to the style of Joos de Momper (15641635), who was previously considered to be the painting’s author. It depicts an uneven landscape with rocks, at the upTHE ITALIAN HALL

This small hall, whose furnishings imitate the style of Louis XVI, is decorated with another 17th century Flemish tapestry (300 x 295 cm) from the ‘Galerías de Don Rodrigo’ series. Similar in composition to the one in the Breakfast Room, the only difference is that almost no room exists in this piece for the landscape between the small temple and the border.

Some paintings hang on the walls, notably a Mountainous Landscape by Matías Jimeno, a Castilian painter documented between 1639 and 1656, who is mentioned as a disciple of Vicente Carducho. On deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 2004), the painting (69 x 118 cm) depicts a forest with an opening on the right leading to a background with ruins. On the left, two figures with swords, one of whom is on horseback, contemplate a battle between three hunters and a bear. The canvas, which has been catalogued as belonging to the French school, was thought by Díaz Padrón (1975,I:457) to be Flemish because of its treatment of the landscape, which has abundant mannerist references that reveal its inspiration in engravings from an earlier period. The signature (‘Matia Jimº Fa.’), however, makes clear that it is a Spanish work from the mid17th century.

The portrait of Filippo Alessandro Colonna (75 x 62 cm), of notable quality, is the work of the Venetian Francesco Leonardoni (1654-1711), who worked from about 1680 in the service of the Court in Madrid, where, in addition to some religious paintings, he realized numerous portraits, mostly of small size. These, according to Ceán Bermúdez (1800,III:19-20), ‘concluded much and contributed overly to his fame.’ The subject of the painting, who was constable of Naples in the second half of the 17th century, is represented half body, with wig and blue coat with gold adornments and red vest, as well as a long tie of Flemish lacework meticulously rendered, and with the Golden Fleece hanging from one of the buttonholes of the coat. On the back of the painting is a label with the following inscription: ‘D. Felipe Alexandro Colonna, condestable de Nápoles, marido de Dª Lorenza de la Cerda, tuvo el toyson en 1689’. The signature also appears: ‘Leonardoni’. It is without a doubt the same painting that belonged to the Carderera collection listed as nº 172 (Carderera,1877:62).

Forming a couple with the previous painting is the supposed portrait of Lorenza de la Cerda (76 x 63 cm), previously attributed to Leonardoni and registered in the above-mentioned Carderera collection as nº 173, and which is in fact signed by an unknown Lorenzo Rubino and dated to 1703 (on the lower left: ‘D. Lorenzo Rubino / faciet….1703’). The woman, who bore the title of princess of Paliano after her marriage in 1681 to Filippo Alessandro Colonna, first son of the constable Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, was daughter of the duke of Medinaceli and niece of the all powerful marquis of Carpio, who had until recently been the Spanish Viceroy in Naples. She is dressed in a light blue dress with a crimson cloak and holds a type of compass or clock in her right hand. Two small Flower Vases (22 x 17.5 cm), painted in oil on wood, with a variety of flowers arranged in vases of different types, seem to be the work of the Spanish school from the end of the 17th century, or perhaps even the early 18th century, although it is difficult to ascertain a specific authorship for them. Although they of course bring to mind the work of the Madrid-born Bartolomé Pérez (1634-1693), son-in-law and disciple of the outstanding Juan de Arellano, these two pieces (which form a group along with two other paintings kept in other rooms), for their abundance of flowers and the low quality of the vessels that contain them, may be the work of a follower of his, or even perhaps one of the innumerable Italian artists who cultivated this genre in that country.

The landscape with a classical air titled The Lake of Zaragoza (79 x 60 cm) is clearly from the 18th century, and depicts a mountain with a lake in the foreground, on whose shores a shepherdess milks a goat as some women stroll by, with various houses and animals visible.

Of extraordinary interest are two small paintings (28 x 21 cm) of Popular Types and A Girl, the latter dated 1839 and depicting a girl against a background of lightly sketched residences. Previously attributed to Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (1817-1870), the two compositions may be more accurately considered the work of the unfortunate painter Leonardo Alenza (1807-1845), for the authentic mannerism achieved by that artist through his notably skilled and expressive modelling. The works, however, also fit within the style of José Elbo (18021844), a Romantic painter from Úbeda belonging to the Sevillian school, who cultivated the subject matter of ‘majas’ and ‘majos’, and figures associated with bullfighting, generally in small-sized paintings that are not incompatible with these oil paintings.

There is also a pair of modern, white marble and bronze candelabras inspired in the style of Charles IV, as well as various clocks. One timepiece has a high body of mahogany wood and gilt bronze adornments, signed on its dial by John Taylor in London and which dates from the end of the 18th century or early 19th century. The second timepiece, a bracket styled clock, with a

Landscape with Port.

shelf for calendar and machinery, is signed on its dial and on a plaque on its bottom by Rto. and Pedro Higgs and Diego Evans in London and dates from the 19th century. The third clock is a table clock of gilt bronze with vegetation adornments and a rounded finish. The legend ‘Le Palais Royal’ appears on the dial and is French made from the 19th century. Another timepiece, also French and bronze with glazing, dates from the end of the 19th century and has a system of gyrating pendulum.

THE HALLWAY

Located in a broad space that serves as a hallway, is a painting (52 x 80 cm) titled Landscape with a Grain Wagon in the style of the Flemish Joos de Momper (1564-1635). On deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 2020), the oil painting depicts on the left a dense grove with a church; on the right, countryside stretches to the background; in the centre, various small figures of peasants with a grain wagon appear, with others in the background; on the extreme right, a tree serves to frame the composition, which offers a somewhat fantastic vision of nature indebted to the landscapes of Pieter Brueghel. There is also a Landscape with Port (41 x 92 cm), by an anonymous Italian artist of the 17th century, which is also on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 2339). It shows a large stretch of water bordered by monticules, buildings and bridges, with various small figures and a cloudy sky. Of significant interest are two small works (24.5 x 29 cm) that depict scenes from the Interior of a Stable. By an anonymous painter of the Dutch school of the late 17th or early 18th century, they bring to mind the lovely creations of Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668), the foreymous portrait of Louis III, Duke of Bourbon (117 x 87 cm), a good quality French work of the 18th century, closer in style to the naturalism of a Philippe de Champaigne than to the theatrical artificiality of painters of the Louis XIV period, such as Hyacinthe Rigaud or Nicolas de Largillierre. On deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 2368), the work depicts the nobleman a bit more than half body, dressed in armour, with a light blue sash around the waist, a large red

Knight of the Order of Santiago, from the Flemish school of the 18th century.

most specialist in horses of that school. One painting shows a rider preparing a horse, while the other, in a Gothic style stable, depicts a man holding an energetic dapple-grey steed, while two other men sit on the ground.

THE PRIVATE OFFICE

A valuable series of paintings are present in this room, including the anon-

ribbon on the neck, the blue band of the Order of Holy Spirit on the chest and a wig of curly hair. His right hand rests on his hip, while the left rests on a helmet with a high white crest that sits on a table covered with red velvet. There is a red curtain in the background on the left and a small opening of landscape on the right. On the back there is a piece of paper that reads: ‘Nº 961. Retto de Louis Duc de Bourbon, prince du Sang’, with the same repeated painted on the canvas a bit lower down.

A good quality portrait (64 x 80 cm) of a Young Prince in the Period of Louis XIV is by an anonymous artist and from the French school of the late 18th century. On deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 2418), it depicts a youth in half body with a long and curly wig, floral coat and red cuffs adorned with lacework, while around his neck is a large red bow from which a lacework tie hangs. On the back, it bears a label that indicates its registry number and the inscription: ‘Retto. de un principe (jo)ven con trage azul (y) bueltas encarnadas en las mangas’.

A painting of a Knight of the Order of Santiago (74 x 61 cm) of enormous strength and naturalness, is by an anonymous 17th century artist close to the Flemish school and particularly Justus van Egmont (1601-1674), an artist with echoes of Anton van Dyck and the contemporary French portraitists. Shown half body and in profile, the knight, who is without a doubt Spanish, has long hair and is dressed in armour with a red cloak on his back. Hanging from his neck is a medal that indicates his membership in the Knighthood of Santiago.

There is also a portrait (117 x 82 cm) of King John Charles I, signed by F. G. Mantilla and dated in 1976. It is an almost photographic work against a gold background, depicting the monarch slightly more than half body and in the dress uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Army, with the Golden Fleece and the band and badge of the Grand Cross of Collar of the Royal Order of Charles III, as well as the Grand Cross of the Merit of the Army.

The modern furnishings are in the style of Louis XV, notable among which is an excellent writing table with gilt bronze adornments.

THE BEDROOMS

The bedrooms of the private residence, with modern furnishings created in different French and Spanish styles of the 19th and 20th centuries, house various paintings of a religious nature, such as The Child of the Thorn, an interesting work (72 x 52 cm) by the Sevillian painter Pedro Núñez de Villavicencio (16441700), who also painted The Virgin Child, Spinning, of similar dimensions. Both works are on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 1318 and 1319, respectively), where they arrived from the Museo de la Trinidad (nº 1164 and 1165). Professor Angulo Íñiguez (1981,II:383 and 429), who was unaware of the inscriptions painted on the back of the paintings (‘Caballero de Villavicencio’), guessed, with his customary accuracy, that they could be the work of some follower of Murillo from the end of the 18th century. The first shows the Baby Jesus sitting on a chair, with the crown of thorns on his lap. He holds his left index finger in his right hand, looking for a thorn in this finger. In the background is a nimbus with heads of angels that circle the Child. The second composition depicts the Virgin sitting on a chair with a spindle in her lap with which she uses both hands to spin thread. She is dressed according to the period, and a nimbus with angel heads appears in the background. For its part, The Virgin of the Cloth (69 x 73 cm) is an old copy of the one by Murillo, which repeats the original made by the Sevillian artist in 1664-1666 and which is now in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville.

Other paintings from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries belong to the Spanish, Flemish and Dutch schools. Belonging to the last is a Seascape (60 x 85 cm), on deposit from the Museo del Prado (nº 3821), with a cliff in the foreground, behind which is a sky with heavy clouds and a rough sea with various galleons flying the Dutch flag. It is reminiscent of the fantastic scenes of rocky coasts bathed in frothing waves in the paintings of Jan Porcellis (c.1584-1632), as well as those from the early period of Simon de Vlieger (c.1600-1635), although the hard tone and certain slips in the use of colour make one think of the final years of the 17th century and even the early years of the following one. There is also a lovely ivory crucifix, probably from the Spanish school of the 17th century.

Various clocks are distributed around the residential area, of which one mid19th century, French gilt bronze table clock deserves special attention. In the Empire style, it has a rectangular plinth with a relief representation of Fame and the winged horse Pegasus; the winged figure of Victory, meanwhile, appears sitting on top of the workings, with her feet resting on some clouds, while different attributes appear on the left. The signature Pickard appears on the workings, with the year 1868. There is also another clock of gilt bronze and slate, made in Spain in the 19th century and decorated with two cherubs, one with a flute and another with a dove, both sitting on either side of the dial. A third gilt bronze clock from the 19th century, with workings signed by Hémon in Paris, has vegetation decoration and feminine figures.

Seascape, from the Flemish school of the 17th century.

THE STAIRCASE AND VESTIBULE

Various works of art are at the foot of the staircase that communicates the private area with the small courtyard. A painting (65 x 85 cm) representing a curious combination of Still Life with Fountain is from the 17th century and probably from the Flemish school, but by an unknown artist. In the piece, a vase with numerous flowers is on the left, various fruits are on the right in the foreground, while in the background, a fountain with a central jet of water stands before a simple architectural structure, above which is a landscape. the fierce struggle of a wolf to free itself from the attack of various dogs that attack it on all sides in an open field with a landscape in the background.

There is also an official portrait of Isabella II as a Child (119 x 84 cm), a copy of the one painted by the Valencian Vicente López (1772-1850). The artistic quality of the work, however, is a good deal inferior to what one might expect from a first painter of the Court, and although it has been at times considered his work, it is more likely a product of his studio, where his son, Bernardo López Piquer, and other collaborators (Mariano Quintanilla, José Maea, etc.) made numerous copies to supply the demand of the official institutions.

On a small mahogany table in the style of Louis XVI with gilt bronze adornments is a brass sculptural group (44 x 44 x 18 cm) of a Horseman with Dogs, from the end of the 19th century or early 20th, signed on the left of its base by the German W. Zurick.

Among the furnishings, there is a notable Portuguese style cabinet with metallic inlays of vegetation ornamentation on the front and wood marquetry on the upper section and the sides. On top of the piece is an enormous gilt bronze vase (44 x 26 cm), decorated with a relief of a battle from the Roman age. It is English from the end of the 19th century, made by the London firm of Hancocks.

Lastly, in a niche is an excellent marble copy (170 x 47 x 44 cm) of Venus Italica or Palatine Venus, an outstanding piece made between 1804 and 1812 by the Italian Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the original of which is in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The work reveals all of the idealism that the artist managed to bestow on his creations, in his search for an analogy of the classical models.

There is a very interesting painting on copper (69 x 87 cm) representing Rudolf I of Habsburg Ceding His Mount to a Priest Who Carries the Holy Sacrament. The work is Flemish by an anonymous painter of the 17th century, who here repeats the same subject matter depicted by Peter Paul Rubens in a painting now in the Museo del Prado. There is also a Fight between a Wolf and Dogs (108 x 164 cm), possibly from the Madrid school of the second half of the 17th century, which is a close copy of the painting by the Flemish Frans Snyders (1579-1657) kept at the Museo del Prado (nº 1773); the agitated scene shows

OTHER DEPENDENCIES

ifferent sculptures and paintings worthy of mention are found in other areas of the palace itself and in the contiguous buildings that make up the Headquarters.

Among the first of the above is a bust (75 x 56 x 20 cm) of General Castaños, realized in cast iron in 1855 by Jacinto Bergeret at the Asturian workshop of Trubia, after a model made in gesso in 1853 by the Romantic sculptor José Piquer y Duart (1806-1871). The duke of Bailén is in uniform and wears various bands and decorations meticulously rendered, allowing them to be identified as those of the Golden Fleece and the orders of Charles III, Isabella the Catholic, Saint Ferdinand, Saint Hermenegild, etc. There are also two small bronzes (40 x 30 x 15 cm), surely French from the 19th century, that reproduce the famous Horses of Marly made by Guillaume Coustou in the early 18th century for the Château de Marly, near Versailles, and which now grace the Parisian avenue of the ChampsÉlysées. Two cast iron sculptures (80 x 22 x 22 cm) by an unknown Spanish artist of the 19th century represent Cervantes and Murillo, dressed in the Spanish fashion of the 17th century. There is also a 19th century French representation (48 x 49 x 23 cm) of Justice, also of cast iron.

In terms of paintings, there are some works of extraordinary quality, such as a portrait of a Knight (103 x 76 cm), of uncertain date, shown in full body and dressed in 16th century fashion with a black suit over which is a gold collar. Of special note is a painting (43 x 68 cm) of a Battle scene, which could be the work of the already mentioned Esteban March from the 17th century. In this work, various soldiers on horseback combat amid clouds of dust, while in the background on the right more fighting is visible in front of a mountain. Also by Esteban March, or his circle, are two paintings depicting a Battle against the Turks. In one of these (75 x 127 cm), crusaders and Turks combat beside a bridge, with a castle on the right. The painting has been backed, thus hiding any stamp or inscription concerning its origins that may be on its reverse. The other (75 x 100 cm), which has probably been reduced in size given the state of its deterioration, also depicts a combat between crusaders and Turks, under a cloudy sky and with a tower on the right. There is also a Landscape (84 x 103 cm) by an unknown artist whose name appears to be Philo, to judge by the signature that appears on the lower right of the canvas. The work depicts a Roman countryside with a river, which, crossed by bridges, becomes lost on the horizon. On the right bank, a flock grazes and in the foreground, two figures appear in a boat. On the right, there is some classical architecture with arches and Corinthian columns. It is a notable work, possibly from the French school of the late 17th, or early 18th century, in which the classical landscape now forms the main subject matter. From the same school and period and in the same style is another Landscape (74 x 98 cm), with two feminine figures conversing in a leafy setting beside a river while in the background is a large residence. Also from de 17th century is a third Landscape (51 x 68 cm), of a path leading between dark gorges along which various people travel, some on horseback, others on foot, under a sky of heavy clouds. Two small Flower Vases (22 x 17.5 cm) painted on wood are by an anonymous Spanish artist from the end of the 17th or perhaps early 18th century.

19th century painting is represented by an acceptable copy (122 x 93 cm) of the portrait of Queen Isabella II painted by Federico de Madrazo in 1844, about which comments have already been made concerning the copy kept in the Prim Hall. From the same cen-

tury is an enormous canvas (192 x 323 cm) that decorates the Hall of the Staff and represents an Episode from the African War, painted in 1864 by the Catalan Francisco Sans y Cabot (18341881) and which shows, as previously discussed in the above-mentioned hall, the Spanish troops forming around General O’Donnell, who signals with his right hand towards the walled city of Tétouan, visible on the left in the background. The painting is reminiscent in some of its figures of the supposed scene of The Battle of Castillejos, which, according to Ossorio y Bernard (1883-1884:630), the same Sans apparently painted expressly for General O’Donnell and which may be the painting that was in the Queen’s Hall of the former Museo del Ejército in Madrid.

There is also a medium quality copy (197 x 298 cm) by an unknown artist of The Surrender of Bailén, the wellknown history painting made in 1864 by José Casado del Alisal (1831-1886), from Palencia, now in the Museo del Prado. The excellent portrait of General Juan Zavala y de la Puente (120 x 85 cm), made in 1882 in Madrid, is the work of J. Laverny. The illustrious general of the Cavalry, who was minister of War in 1872 and 1874, is in full-dress uniform with the red band and three crosses of the Order of Saint Ferdinand. Of similar artistic quality is the representation of General Camilo García Polavieja (120 x 88 cm), signed in 1888 by the Sevillian Manuel de Ojeda y Siles (1835-1904), a disciple of Esquivel, who shows here his well-known skill in the genre of portraiture. The general, who was minister of War in 1899, appears in the uniform of general with the band and badge of Charles III and other decorations, among which is the Laureate Grand Cross of Saint Ferdinand.

The portrait of General José Tovar y Marcoleta (134 x 92 cm) dates from the 20th century and is by the Aragonese Juan José Gárate Clavero (18701939), a good portraitist and successful painter of popular subject matter, who painted in 1920 the then minister of War for Alfonso XIII in the full-dress uniform of general and wearing the badge and red band of the Laureate Grand Cross of Saint Ferdinand. The Battle Scene (199 x 282 cm) is by Francisco Echauz Buisán (1927-2011), a painting of grey tones dated in 1948, in which some soldiers shoot from with in a basement, possibly the Alcázar in Toledo. Also by the same artist is The Transporting of Zumalacárregui (148 x 200 cm) from 1951, in which soldiers of the Regimiento nº 1 carry the stretcher bearing the famous Carlist general, after he was wounded at the Bilbao front, and which would lead to his death in Cegama in 1835. There is a curious interpretation, rather than an exact copy, of the well-known painting by Velázquez The Surrender of Breda, made by the realist painter Cristóbal Toral (Antequera, Málaga, 1940) during his military service in the Batallón del Ministerio. The sizeable work (189 x 280 cm) is quite freely rendered in contrast to the customary rigour that would later bring the artist fame, and shows the painter himself dressed in the khaki uniform of the Army among the Spanish troops that Ambrogio Spinola commanded in Flemish lands during the reign of Philip IV. It is signed on the lower right: ‘C. Toral / 67’.

As in the main floor of the palace, various clocks of exceptional quality are distributed throughout other areas. Notable among these is a 19th century French clock, with Brocot workings, that represents a warrior in helmet and armour, with the workings resting on various weapons and shields. A black marble and bronze clock from the second half of the 19th century, signed on the dial by the Parisian clockmaker Paillard, shows the sitting figure of Lorenzo de Medici on the upper part, a copy of the well-known funerary sculpture by Michelangelo. Lastly, there is a high-bodied British clock from the 19th century, signed on its dial by Simpson Wigton.

LATEST RESTORATIONS

he Army, which has a historic and artistic heritage of incalculable value, is fully committed to the goal of returning the Palace of Buenavista to all its splendour.

TENIERS HALL

Vault and cornicing

The roof of the Teniers Hall has a central tondo with a diameter of 150 cm, with painted and gilded decorations in relief. It is flanked by two smaller tondos, with an 87 cm diameter, featuring the same decorative order. Below, there is a perimeter wreath with a motif of plants and palms – all of which is in white – over a terracotta coloured base, framed with gilded mouldings. Beneath this runs a band, also in terracotta, in which there are eight embossed and golden palms and rinceau situated in the corners and in the centre of the sides. Below, there is a section of scotia moulding, decorated with twelve laurel wreaths and seventeen vases, linked by garlands, alternating between white and gold above a terracotta coloured background. In the corners of the scotia moulding there are four mascarons featuring women’s heads in the classical style, with a diameter of 120 cm. Finally, there is a white perimeter cornice with gilded mouldings.

All of the painted elements, both in white and in terracotta, were painted using tempera, whilst the gilded elements were finished in gold leaf using the mordant technique.

The level of conservation was characterised by the accumulation of superficial dirt, mostly caused by environmental pollution. There were also cracks and fissures, above all in the corner areas, and some leaks, which had damaged the paint and changed its colour. Furthermore, the gilded elements were cracked. In previous works, some areas of the white stucco had been cleaned and scraped in order to give the impression of greater volume, and a dark patina was applied to certain areas of the gilded stucco. The background painting showed signs of being repainted with acrylic paint.

Works to restore the original tempera began with the elimination of the dirt and volumetric reintegration using plaster, meanwhile the missing pieces were filled in with synthetic filler. The restoration of the colours was carried out using tempera paint and pastel coloured pencils.

The ceiling and the lamp of the Teniers Hall.

The fireplace in the Hall of Audiences.

After the gilded elements were cleaned and the volumetric reintegration had been carried out, they proceeded to apply a synthetic primer, a shiny synthetic glaze, a varnish and an oil paint to match the colour to the original. Then, they gilded the aforementioned elements in gold leaf and applied a protective varnish.

With regards to the cornicing, they had to remove the metallic paint which was found in certain areas. Moreover, they made and installed a 35 m long plaster structure to hide the new electric installation which lights the dome.

HALL OF AUDIENCES

Fireplace

The Hall of Audiences has a French chimney made from white and black marble, decorated with semi-precious stones.

It is decorated with a white marble frame, with columns on either side, and sits on top of a base of black marble. At the top there is a shelf, with a cornice decorated in black marble with overlaid gilt bronze appliqués. Three white marble brackets support the upper part, which is inlaid with agate and lapis lazuli on a background of black marble. Both the bases and the capitals of the columns are made from gilt bronze: the bases are moulded with leaf adornments, and the capitals are in the Corinthian style, with a central bust and volutes. The shafts, made of white marble, are inlaid with lapis lazuli and malachite. The hearth has a grate above a brass moulded frame, fixed to white marble.

This fireplace showed signs of deterioration, mostly on the front of the inlaid semi-precious stones and across all the

Trumeau mirror and detail from the ceiling of the Hall of Audiences.

metallic elements, caused by rusting and the remains of other interventions.

With regards to the inlays, the best preserved pieces were the largest ones. After a very careful cleaning process, it was clear that there were numerous previous restorations using stucco – which had been blackened by dirt – and that some circular pieces had been lost. They also saw small fractures in the black marble on the front piece and in the white marble of the columns, as a consequence of the lack of certain specific stones. In the same way, there was some loss of filler in the joints between the marble blocks and residual dirt and lack of lustre on all the surfaces, a result of the passing of time.

First, they used a mix of chromium and water to get rid of the dirt, rust and the traces of cleaners used through the years on the bronze and brass pieces. Next, they applied a special metal protector to the bronze. The marble surfaces were also treated with an ethyl alcohol solution and a neutral soap, using a light abrasive on the most difficult areas. Before the final polish, a protector was applied to all these surfaces.

As for the semi-precious stones, they got rid of the stucco from previous restorations on the shelf and applied a mixture of polyester resin and pigments. For this, they chose neutral tones, looking for a certain similarity to the few original

A lintel in the Hall of Audiences.

stones which remained. In the columns, they only needed to correct some faults and even out some tones, respecting the previous restorations.

Entablature

The entablature in the Hall of Audiences is divided into the frieze and the cornice with a structure of pine wood, thickened with mahogany wood and decorated with carved, gilded and multi-coloured mouldings. The frieze is affixed to the wall’s beam and rests on the capitals of the room’s 20 columns. The beam is a piece of squared off pine wood with dimensions of 30 cm by 20 cm. The frieze is divided in two parts: an interior part attached to the wall, with flat panels of mahogany wood and decorative mouldings, and another, exterior part, which is attached to the cornicing, with 3 mm decorative mahogany wood mouldings with a vertical grain. The cornicing is a beam of pine wood with dimensions of 28 cm by 12 cm, thickened with 15 mm mahogany wood, and in turn, attached to beams (20 cm by 15 cm) which come from the wall by iron plates and screws. The columns are of the composite order and are decorated with carved, gilded and multi-coloured capitals.

All of the mahogany is treated with shellac and patinated with a mix of dye and varnish. The mouldings are gold

plated, with some polished areas, and the background is painted off-white, using tempera.

The wooden structure did not present any movement or any kind of deterioration, nor were any xylophagous organisms or pathogenic agents found. Regarding the columns, there were some problems with how the wedges fitted to the frieze, which made them less stable and more vulnerable. Over time, the mahogany wood had accumulated dirt in the form of grease and the varnish rusting. With regards to the woodwork, there were some loose pieces in the cubes in the fretwork on the frieze.

The gilded and multi-coloured mouldings showed accumulated dirt in the form of grease, which gave a dun colour to the gilded areas and a blackened look to the white background. There were also cracks in the joints of the sections of moulding, as well as the loss of gold and the pictorial layer.

The restoration works began with cleaning the wood in a solution of nitrocellulose solvent and alcohol to eliminate the accumulated grease and the rusting of the shellac, as well as the remains of the patina which hid the original wood. For a deeper clean, they used a light abrasive. After rinsing it all with alcohol, they adjusted the loose pieces of the cubes and, where necessary, put new wedges into place in the columns.

The action taken to help the gilded and multi-coloured mouldings consisted of mechanical and chemical cleaning of the surfaces, drainage, replacement of the missing pieces – using lime wood or resin – the application of rabbit-skin glue as a form of primer and of stucco with plaster of Paris. Gilding was done using the original, water based technique, specific areas were polished, the gold finish was protected with a metal varnish and the background was restored to its original white colour.

Trumeau mirror

The trumeau mirror in the Hall of Audiences is rectangular and made from mahogany wood, with approximate dimensions of 2.90 m by 1.60 m. The carvings are gilded in gold leaf with a mixed technique of water and mixture. It is divided into two sections: a lower part, which is the cabinet of the mirror per se, and the upper part, which shows the image of Manuel Godoy.

The support of the lower section is made of mahogany varnished with shellac in the French style, with different mouldings around the perimeter depicting strings of pearls and ‘water leaves’. In the central part of the design, figure heads and plant motifs are depicted alternately.

The second part depicts a semi-circle, with carved arrowheads and, plant motifs and stars, framed by strings of pearls and ‘water leaves’. Manuel Godoy is depicted inside the semi-circle: we see a bust wearing Roman clothing and a ducal crown (a reference to his title as the Duke of Alcudia), which is held by two winged figures, and below the figures there is a boat (alluding to his appointment as admiral). All of this is flanked by two winged horses, and in the top corners are triumphal trumpets and laurel crowns.

In general, the trumeau was in good condition. However, the gilded carvings had accumulated dirt in the form of grease, which caused these pieces to appear blackened and take on a dun colour, far from their original colour and shine. There were cracks in the joints between the sections of carvings and mouldings, as well as residue from previous restorations – above all in the upper section – and an important part of the support for the moulding of the strings of pearls was missing.

To make up for these shortcomings, they took down the gilded pieces and cleaned them with a solution of nitrocellulose solvent and alcohol, along with a light abrasive, whilst the mahogany wood supports were treated with transparent shellac. They used mechanical cleaning on the gilded mouldings and carvings, followed by a chemical clean. To replace the missing elements, they used lime wood and a specific resin for volumetric restorations. Afterwards, they applied rabbit-skin glue and resin to prime the area and applied the stucco in the traditional way – with rabbit-skin glue and plaster of Paris – and gilded certain elements using water – varnishing the areas which should have a high-shine finish – as well as a mixture, proceeding to then apply a protecting varnish. The final step was putting all the pieces in their original positions.

Mural

The roof of the Hall of Audiences is decorated with a mural painted in tempera which had a leak in one of its corners. As a consequence of this, there were damp patches, salts, and some damage to the pictorial layer including leakages and some parts becoming baggy.

Once the pictorial layer had been stabilised and settled, they began to eliminate the salts. As a result, there were some holes created by the deterioration of the support, which meant a volumetric reintegration using calcium carbonate had to be carried out. Later, stucco was also applied. The chromatic reintegration was carried out using watercolours. In the lowest area, attached to the cornicing, they had to create a colour from tempera to imitate the original colour, because the deterioration of the

painting was pronounced in this area. Finally, to conceal and camouflage the dampness, they used pastel pencils.

Doors and lintels

The Hall of Audiences has four doors. The first is a double door, and has a panel on the lintel. The doors are decorated with rosettes and mouldings gilded in gold leaf mixture and fake gold on the inner side. Of the three door panels, the two upper ones are mixtilinear rectangles whilst the bottom one, which is smaller, is square. The whole door is framed by pearls and gilded mouldings. On the outer plane of the jamb, there are medallions in the shape of lions’ heads and a border composed of plant motifs, whilst the lintel has a bow and quiver, flanked by two cups with a wild boar’s head and palms, all of which is golden. The panel above the door is dominated by the figure of Apollo, depicted in white, with a golden lyre as his symbol. On either side of Apollo are golden rinceaux featuring white angels and two golden griffins holding bows in their beaks. There is a bronze medallion with the head of Medusa in each of the top corner.

The second door features the same decoration as the first, except that in this case, the lintel shows a lance and two laurel crowns. The panel above the door is dominated by a female figure who wears lion skin over her shoulders, accompanied by peacocks who appear in the rinceaux, an animal which, in Greek mythology, is associated with the goddess Hera.

The third door is decorated in the same way as the second, except that the central figure is a female deity with a banner blowing in the wind, apparently without any defining symbols.

The fourth door is similar to the first, with the only difference being that in the panel above the door, there is a masculine figure wearing a crown with the symbol of an eagle, possibly representing the god Zeus.

The state of conservation of the four doors was characterised by the loss of numerous carved elements and some supports, cracks in the joints between the different pieces, distortion of the boards in the panels above the doors, an overall presence of dirt and rust, cracking in the tempera, etc.

At the beginning of the process, they took down all the elements from the doors and upper panels, cleaning them in a specific way according to the way they were made: gilded in gold leaf using water on the panels above the doors and the lintels; white paint on the central figures, the rinceaux and the mouldings on the perimeter of the upper panels; and gilding in gold leaf and fake gold using the mixture technique on the borders of the arches and mouldings of the doors.

For the wooden supports, they kept in mind the nature of the materials: the door frames are made of solid mahogany and consist of various planes and decorated with carved and gilded moulding; above the door, the panel is made of pine wood which has been planked in 2 mm of solid mahogany, which has a carved and gilded moulding on the perimeter; and the doors are made of pine wood and are thickened with 3 mm mahogany wood, finished with an alcohol based varnish, and have handles and keyholes made from gilded bronze, engraved with plant imagery.

In general, all the wood was darkened and damaged by the passing of time and as a consequence of prior restoration attempts. Added to this was the rusting of the gilded bronze, the fact that some pieces had gone missing, the distortion of the panel above the door (with cracks in the mahogany wood’s veneer), or the deterioration of the varnishes due to ageing. However, they did not detect any xylophagous organisms.

The door leaves and the rest of the wooden elements were taken down in order to be cleaned with a light abrasive and, in the more complicated areas, a mix of alcohol and acetone. The missing pieces were reintegrated using mahogany wood and pigmented acrylic filler. To achieve a better finish on all the surfaces, they applied shellac and an acrylic primer. The bronze pieces were cleaned with paint stripper and a mix of acetone and alcohol, with some parts also needing to be submerged in a solution of chromic acid and water.

The restorations of the doors and lintels in the Hall of Audiences was completed by returning all the elements to their original positions.

Radiator covers

In the Hall of Audiences there are two types of radiator covers: those on the wall of the balconies and those on the wall of the chimney.

The former do not have grates on the front part, because in reality they cover air conditioning units. They have an air outlet in the lower part and an opening for the air in the upper part. These radiator covers have the same decoration as the skirting board, with the only exception being the air outlet, which has a small grate. They have a central panel which is bordered by moulding, with white acanthus leaves alternating with golden leaves and cordons. The skirting board has a large moulding with carved palmettes and figures of eight, alternating between golden and white. The background has a mahogany sheet above a pine support, varnished in the French style.

The Vestibule of the Shells.

The radiator covers on the wall of the chimney are not in the same style as the skirting board because they have a grate on the front to allow the heat to pass through. Installing the water radiators, which took place after the original decoration process, made it necessary to alter the skirting board: the central panel was substituted for two metal grate doors, bordered by plaster moulding. Both the grate and the moulding are gilded in fake gold, although originally the moulding’s gilding was made of silver gilt.

In general, the wooden supports were in a good condition, with the exception of some cracks in the joints and imperfections in the corners of the mahogany veneer. However, the varnish had been badly damaged by rust, which gave it a brown tone and hid the original colours. Finally, the gilded mouldings showed evidence of prior generalised procedures using a mixture of fake gold and even the occasional retouching in metallic paint.

The work on both kinds of radiator covers started with the lids and mouldings being taken down. The old varnish was mechanically removed, the area was cleaned with alcohol and the missing pieces were returned using a similar kind of wood and a pigmented acrylic putty. Next, they applied a shellac base to bring out the natural mahogany tone and, after a layer of acrylic primer, they varnished the wood using shellac to give a better finish.

With regards to the gilded mouldings, the fake gold was eliminated from the mixture using a special paint stripper and, using resin, volumetric reintegration of the support was carried out where necessary. The application of stucco allowed what little was left of the original gilding made of fine gold and water to be preserved. Next, the mouldings were gilded – using the original technique or mixture – and burnished certain areas to give them a glossy finish. The moulding’s original off-white colour was recreated using tempera.

Openings and frames

The door frames and openings form a single decorative order. The opening has two planes with a sunken central door panel surrounded by water-leaf carving moulding gilded in fine gold, while the framing has a water-gilded acanthus-leaf carving moulding in fine gold. The mahogany support is varnished with French-style shellac.

The general condition of the wooden supports was good, except for some cracks in the joints between the mitre joints and the new pine pieces in the lintels. However, rusting in the varnish gave it a dull tone and hid the original colours. Furthermore, the gilded mouldings showed signs of retouching in fake gold using mixture and even occasional touch ups using metallic paint, as well as problems in the carving.

For the restoration of the supports, they mechanically removed the old varnish, washed the area with alcohol and reintegrated pieces which had been missing, using a similar kind of wood and pigmented acrylic putty. Next, they applied a shellac base and, after applying a layer of acrylic primer, they varnished the wood again using a French-style shellac.

The gilded mouldings were treated with paint stripper to remove the fake gold made with mixture, whilst they used a specific resin for the volumetric reintegration. Next, the moulding on the frames was gilded using water, putting on the gold leaf one by one until it covered the whole surface. The mouldings of the opening, to which a synthetic stucco was applied with the aim of preserving what little remained of the gold leaf, were gilded using a mixture. To finish, they polished the areas which ought to have a glossy finish. Columns and other elements

The Hall of Audiences is decorated with mahogany columns whose capitals are finished in gold leaf and white paint. Each column has two neckings in the lower third of the shaft and a base with carved leaves in false gold using mixture and white paint.

In general, the wood was well preserved. However, the varnish was rusted, giving it a dull colour which was quite different to the original colour of the mahogany. There were also scratches and dents in the middle and lower parts of the columns.

The capitals were missing some carvings in the protruding and interior parts, as well as some pieces of carving coming loose, cracks and tears, occasional touch ups with metallic paint, generalised dirt and grease, a build up of dust and some missing gilding and paint. Furthermore, some of the capitals were not very stable.

The restoration works on the columns were similar to those described above and those that allowed the original appearance to be restored to other elements of the Hall of Audiences, such as the skirting board, the plinths and the perimeter mouldings.

VESTIBULE OF THE SHELLS

Dome, cornice and walls

The ceiling of the Vestibule of the Shells has a double rectangular gadroon moulding, which continues in a section whose corners are decorated with scallop shells, flanked by palms and plant garlands. Forming part of the same decorative motif, below the cornice – which consists of smooth gadroon moulding – are the crosses of the four Spanish military orders: Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa. On the walls are double doors, radiator covers and mirrored double doors which hide a lift.

The painting on the ceiling and on the walls is acrylic over a plaster support. The moulding on the ceiling and the cornicing are gilded in fake gold using a mixture, whilst the corner decorations are gilded in gold leaf using water. The crosses of the military orders are carved on top of a wooden support.

In general, the ceiling and the walls were in good condition, except for occasional cracks in the corner areas and in the scotia moulding. On the ceiling, the moulding and the cornicing were also in quite good condition, but the fake gold showed signs of major rusting. Regarding the decorative motifs in the corners, the main problem was the bad condition of the gold leaf which was flaking, cracked, missing pieces and had been repainted using metallic paint, amongst other problems.

Where there was acrylic paint, the restoration consisted of cleaning the surfaces, cleaning up the cracks, sealing joints, and doing a volumetric reintegration where necessary. Next, they applied acrylic paint. Where there was fake gold using mixture, this was removed using sandpaper. A layer of shiny synthetic primer in a vanilla shade was then applied, before the fake gold was reapplied. Later, they added a protective varnish. With regards to the surfaces gilded in gold leaf – both those made of plaster and those made of wood – they removed the metallic paint with which had been repainted, and proceeded to gild, polish and varnish them again.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AGUILAR OLIVENCIA, Mariano, El palacio de Buenavista, Madrid, 1984.

ANGULO ÍÑIGUEZ, Diego, Murillo, Madrid, 1981.

BAZTÁN, Francisco, Monumentos de Madrid, Madrid, 1959.

BONORA, Isabel, ‘La cerámica griega en el arte español de los siglos XVIII y XIX: una primera aproximación’, CABRERA, Paloma et al. (ed.), El vaso griego y sus destinos, Madrid, 2004, pp. 257-274.

BOTTINEAU, Yves, L’art de Cour dans l’Espagne des Lumiéres. 1746-1808, Paris, 1986.

CALVERT, Albert, The Spanish Royal Tapestries, London, 1922.

CARDERERA Y SOLANO, Valentín, Catálogo y descripción sumaria de retratos antiguos, Madrid, 1877.

CEÁN BERMÚDEZ, Juan Agustín, Diccionario histórico de los más ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes en España, Madrid, 1800.

CHUECA GOITIA, Fernando, MIGUEL, Carlos de, Modelo para un palacio en Buenavista. Ventura Rodríguez, Madrid, 1935.

DÍAZ PADRÓN, Matías, Museo del Prado. Catálogo de pinturas. I: Escuela flamenca. Siglo XVII, Madrid, 1975.

FIGUEROA, Eduardo, ‘Ventura Rodríguez, Juan de Villanueva y su tiempo y algo sobre los que corren’, Arquitectura, No. 51, 1963, pp. 20-21. GASTINEL-COURAL, Chantal, ‘Du nouveau sur des ornemanistes français de la fin du XVIIIe siécle. À propos du Palais d’Albe’, L’Estampille. L’Objet d’Art, No. 242, 1990, pp. 66-95.

GONZÁLEZ-POLA DE LA GRANJA, Pablo, ‘El Palacio de Buenavista, ejemplo de conservación del patrimonio histórico-artístico militar’, Militaria, No. 7, 1995, pp. 277-285.

HELD, Jutta, Die Genrebilder der Madrider Teppichmanufaktur und die Anfänge Goyas, Berlin, 1971.

LOPEZOSA APARICIO, Concepción, ‘La huerta y lavaderos de Juan Fernández en el Prado de Agustinos Recoletos’, Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, No. XXXVI, 1996, pp. 2753.

LOPEZOSA APARICIO, Concepción, El Paseo del Prado de Madrid. Arquitectura y desarrollo urbano en los siglos XVII y XVIII, Madrid, 2005.

MADOZ, Pascual, Diccionario geográfico-histórico-estadístico de España. Madrid, Madrid, 1848.

MARTÍN DEL YERRO Y VILLAPECELLÍN, Luis, Historia y descripción de la posesión titulada Palacio de Buena-Vista ó del Ministerio de la Guerra (Madrid), Madrid, 1884.

MARTÍNEZ FRIERA, Joaquín, Un Museo de Pinturas en el Palacio de Buenavista, Madrid, 1942.

MARTÍNEZ FRIERA, Joaquín, Historia del Palacio de Buenavista, hoy día Ministerio del Ejército, Madrid, 1943. MESONERO ROMANOS, Ramón de, Nuevo manual de Madrid, Madrid, 1854.

MORALES Y MARÍN, José Luis, Pintura en España: 1750-1808, Madrid, 1994.

MORALES PIGA, María Luisa, ‘Andrés de la Calleja, autor de los cartones para la pieza de café del palacio de El Pardo’, Academia, No. 75, 1992, pp. 435-469.

OSSORIO Y BERNARD, Manuel, Galería biográfica de artistas españoles del siglo XIX, Madrid, 1883-1884.

PONZ, Antonio, Viaje de España, vol. V, Madrid, 1793.

PORTELA SANDOVAL, Francisco José, ‘La escultura y la pintura en el Museo del Ejército’, Militaria, No. 9, 1997, pp. 121-138.

QUEVEDO PESSANHA, Carmen de, Vida artística de Mariano Benlliure, Madrid, 1947.

REESE, Thomas Ford, The Architecture of Ventura Rodríguez, New York, 1976.

SAMBRICIO, Carlos, ‘Juan Pedro Arnal, arquitecto del siglo XVIII’, Archivo Español de Arte, No. 183, 1973, pp. 299318.

SAMBRICIO, Carlos, La arquitectura española de la Ilustración, Madrid, 1986.

SAMBRICIO, Valentín de, ‘El Museo Fernandino’, Archivo Español de Arte, No. 51, 1942, pp. 132-146.

SAMBRICIO, Valentín de, Los tapices de Goya, Madrid, 1946.