The feminine side of El Prado. Artistic promoters of the Museum's collections (1602-1700)

41 works of art form this temporary exhibition that highlights the important work of patronage exercised by the queens of Spain in the seventeenth century, as well as the outstanding artistic and cultural mediation exercised by the women of the House of Austria present in the European courts of the Baroque.

The exhibition focuses on the achievements of the four queens consorts in Spain during the reigns of Philip IV (1621-1665) and Charles II (1665-1700). In this order, they were successively Isabel de Borbón and Mariana de Austria, the latter also queen regent while her son Carlos II was a minor; and the wives that he later had, María Luisa de Orleans and Mariana de Neoburgo.Also a prominent protagonist is a fifth monarch with no direct link to Spain, Christina of Sweden, who nevertheless compiled what is today the most valuable set of classical sculptures in the Prado Museum. These are mainly Roman replicas of famous works of Greek art, which would later end up being purchased by the Spanish king Philip V.