The price of the ‘treasures’ of Prado | Fortune

How much are the works of the Prado Museum? Impossible to give a figure. But in their time they did. This history of painting, ambitions and money begins with decapitation in 1649, by Carlos I, king of England, and ends with no less than 5,539 paintings distributed over 12 reais Spanish sites. His death facilitated that the Count of Arundel, the Count of Hamilton, and the heirs of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, would also be dispersed. Suddenly, the market was full of incredible works.

Today it seems weird, but the most important purchases were made without the future owner. The trips abroad were slow and dangerous and a prolonged absence was a frank opportunity for cuts full of rivals and intrigues. Agents, sagacious, on the ground were needed. He sent the discretion. Spain – in the time of Felipe IV – had an immense fortune. He successfully sent Alonso de Cárdenas as an agent resident to England in 1635. Carlos I, quite clumsy to recognize people’s expertise, said he was “foolish, ignorant and eccentric.” I missed everything. His decapitation was the beginning of the true feast. Purchases were not paid by Cárdenas but their minister Luis de Haro. The scrapping of the English collections was the opportunity of the century. Especially those of the British Parliament that served to set their debts with the workers.

At that time, the most valuable work, according to the art historian Jonathan Brown (1939-2022), according to his monograph, The triumph of painting (Editorial, Nerea) was the Sagrada Familia, call The pearlbecause the pearl of the collection was considered. It was appraised at 2,500 pounds. Haro would get with her for about 4,000 shields, which would be about 720,000 euros today. Although the exact figure is not known. Today dazzles in the meadow. Tiziano, who was considered the best painter of the time, had, in turn, his space. The speech of the vast marquis (400 pounds) and Carlos V with his dog (150 pounds). Also the dazzling Andrea del Sarto, with her Mystical scene (300 pounds). Although the most expensive purchase of 1649 was the nine -tapestry series with the Acts of the Apostles Rafael on cardboard, fabrics in gold and silk, for which Cárdenas paid, with infinite discretion: 3,599 pounds, about 719,800 euros today.

Most of the works bought by Cárdenas in 1650 came from two vendors. Sergeant Major Robert Gravener detached himself from a jewel, Moses saved from the waters of Veronés, along with another attributed to Caravaggio and two bronzes of Francesco Fanelli, which cost only 7 pounds, 7 shillings and 10 pence each. And painter Remigius van Lemput sold him another twenty parts at balance prices. A year later, exhausted, Haro (already converted into an ambassador), requested to return to Madrid. I had been buying for Felipe IV for 13 years. However, something happened.

Parliament took 684 works to pay back salaries. Cárdenas agreed to the sky of the collectors. Not only because of the quality of the pieces but because I had no competitors. Cunning. Only raisedly paid the appraisal value. The lavatory Tintoretto appraised in 300 pounds went by 325, Cupid’s education De Correggio cost 400 pounds and in 1652 he closed two splendid portraits of Alberto Durero for 75 pounds when they asked for 100. He also had margin of acquiring the Allegory of Peace and War from Rubens for 137 pounds, (today in the National Gallery of London). But I also erred. “This (The death of the Virginof Caravaggio, today in the Louvre) it is per good picture, but it does not seem well to be for far. ”We must understand that the Lombardo genius was contemporary art in those days. But prices were balanced.

So much luck was not going to last. In 1652 the French cardinal Mazarino, passionate collector, entered the game with his agent, Antoine de Bordeaux. Cárdenas had bought a lot, but not everything. Even so, in front of the purple hard, it was made with The Virgen de la Rosa (Rafael) for 500 pounds and for about 105 The death of the Virgin and The Virgin with the child and saints. Both of Andrea Mantegna. It was 1653 and the market seemed exhausted.

Felipe IV was the first big collector as we understand today. Grows the collection of Carlos V to incredible levels. Until the death of Habsburg, Carlos II, during 1700, the scope of the treasure was not compiled. The 12 sites housed 5,569 paintings, of which some 3,000 can be attributed to Felipe IV. In spite of everything, neither collecting nor painting wash the sins of a king’s life. When Velázquez, his real painter and his friend, who had an assigned salary, nothing less, according to Chad M.Gasta, Hispanist at the University of Delaware (United States), of 5,000 annual ducats, dies in 1660, leaves his family a high debt of 3,225 ducats. Maybe it was always his sovereign and less times a friend.