10 masterpieces at the Museo Nacional del Prado

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina | Santa Caterina, 1510 | Museo Nacional del Prado

This is one of the Spanish Renaissance’s most emblematic depictions of a female figure and the best known of Yáñez de la Almedina’s works.

Both considerations are due to the visibility this work has received at the Museo del Prado, where it has been one of the essential icons in its galleries of 16th-century Spanish painting ever since it arrived in 1946.

According to Jacopo de la Vorágine’s The Golden Legend, Saint Catherine of Alexandria was a young, wise and virtuous princess who loved the Lord.

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina (1489-1536) | Santa Caterina, 1510 | Museo Nacional del Prado

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina | Renaissance painter

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina (1489-1536) considered "Spain's most exquisite Renaissance painter" by Elías Tormo was first mentioned in 1575 in Relaciones de los pueblos de España as "licenciado Yáñez" from the village of Almedina.

He also appears in a roster of painters compiled by Hernando de Ávila in his "Art of painting" and included by Diego de Villalta in 1590.

Lorenzo Vallés | History / Genre painter

A painter of history, mythology, genre scenes and landscapes, Lorenzo Vallès (1830-1910) was born in Madrid.

He first studied art at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, together with the renown artist Federico del Campo.

Born in a modest family, he was fostered by the Duke of Sesto who granted him with a pension, thus giving himthe opportunity to go and study art in Rome in 1853.

There, he joined a significant communauty of emigrant artists and, above all, the Spanish colony of painters who included Rafael Senet y Perez (1856-1926), Marià Fortuny i Marsal and Martín Rico y Ortega (1833-1908), who had already found a great international demand fortheir works.

Vicente Palmaroli | Genre painter

Vicente Palmaroli González (Zarzalejo, 1834-1896, Madrid) was a Spanish portrait and Genre painter.

He was the son of Gaetano Palmaroli, an Italian painter and lithographer, who was his first teacher. After his father's death in 1853, he took over his official position at the royal art collections.

He requested leave in 1857 to go to Rome and complete his education, using some surplus money from the collection fund.

While there, he joined a group of Spanish painters who met at the Antico Caffè Greco, including Luis Álvarez Catalá, Dióscoro Puebla, José Casado del Alisal, Eduardo Rosales, Benet Mercadé, Marià Fortuny and Alejo Vera.

Titian | Danaë and the Shower of Gold, 1560-1565

"The Danaë and the Shower of Gold") comprises at least five oil-on-canvas paintings by the Venetian master Titian, completed between 1540-1570.

The works are based on the mythological princess Danaë.

According to Ovid she was isolated in a bronze dungeon following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually kill her father.

Although aware of the consequences, Danaë was seduced and became pregnant by Zeus (in Roman mythology Jupiter), who, inflamed by lust, descended from Mount Olympus to entice her as a shower of gold.

Rogier Van Der Weyden | The Descent from the Cross, c. 1435

The Descent from the Cross was commissioned by the Greater Guild of Crossbowmen of Leuven in today's Belgium and was originally installed in the Chapel of Our Lady Without the Walls. The tiny crossbows in the side spandrels of the picture reflect the original patronage. De Vos and Campbell both give an approximate date of 1435 for the painting.

De Vos argues that the earliest known copy of Van der Weyden's Deposition, the Edeleheere triptych in Leuwen, may have been completed by 1435, certainly before 1443. This implies that Van der Weyden's painting pre-dates it. The painting was exchanged around 1548 for a copy by Michael Coxcie and an organ.

Michelangelo | San Giovannino di Ubeda, 1495-1496

The biographies of Michelangelo by Vasari (1550) and Condivi (1553) recount that following the artist’s return to Florence from Bologna in 1495, his first commission was for a marble sculpture of a “San Giovannino” for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici (cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent), now identified as the present work. Rather than following the model of Donatello’s Saint John the Baptist (Florence, Museo del Bargello) as other Florentine sculptors had done, Michelangelo depicted the Baptist as much younger, no more than a boy of six or seven.

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta | Genre painter

Biography from: Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga

Born in Rome on 24 July 1841 and christened at the church of San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane, Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (24 July 1841 - 15 September 1920) was a pupil of his father Federico and his grandfather José de Madrazo.

He also studied at the San Fernando Academy under Carlos Luis Ribera and Carlos de Haes, among others.

In 1862 he took up residence in Paris, where he was a pupil of the painter Léon Coignet.

Rubens and Brueghel | The Five Senses Allegory | Art workshops

The "Five Senses" is a set of Allegorical paintings created at Antwerp in 1617-1618 by two Flemish masters Jan Brueghel the Elder (Dutch painter, 1568-1625) and Peter Paul Rubens (Dutch painter 1577-1640), with Brueghel being responsible for the settings and Rubens for the figures.

They are now in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

They are all painted in oils on wood panel, approximately 65 by 110 centimetres (2 ft 2 in × 3 ft 7 in) in dimensions.

Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Bruegel the Elder | Allegory of Sight, 1617 | Museo del Prado