For the first time in Spain, the Museo del Prado is presenting a selection of 87 Spanish drawings dating from the 16th to the early 19th centuries from the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In terms of quality and quantity, this institution houses one of the most important collections of Spanish Old Master drawings outside Spain, numbering more than 200 works. Assembled in Seville in the early 19th century, it was subsequently sold on the London art market and acquired by the Hamburg museum in 1891.
The core of the collection comprises drawings by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and by some of his most important contemporaries and followers, many of them associated with the Academy founded in Seville by Murillo, Juan de Valdés Leal and Francisco de Herrera the Younger. In addition, the exhibition includes important works by other leading Golden Age masters such as Alonso Cano and Antonio del Castillo.
