Masterpieces of the Hermitage | The Golden Age of Spanish Painting (Episode 6)

The Golden Age of Spanish painting began in the late sixteenth century and flourished throughout the seventeenth century, coinciding with the Dutch Golden Age. While the Netherlands was revolting against Spanish rule, Spain was developing its own artistic signature. Philip II, an absolute monarch in a society dominated by the Catholic Church, commissioned the construction of El Escorial in 1563. The enormous palace and monastery complex near Madrid was decorated by great Spanish and Italian masters. Spain’s unimaginable wealth, amassed largely during the country’s period of colonial gold fever – Spain called itself ‘the Empire on which the sun never sets’ – brought painters abundant commissions for the king, churches and private collectors. Spanish art flourished.

The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, has the largest and most diverse collection of Spanish art outside Spain. The Small Skylight Room and the adjoining Spanish Room in the New Hermitage house the collection's most valuable Spanish paintings. They include works by El Greco, Jose Ribera, Francisco de Zurbaran, Diego Velazquez, Bartolome Murillo and Francisco de Goya.

Among these masterpices are: The Apostles Peter and Paul (late 1580s) by El Greco; Nailing Christ to the Cross (1582), by F. Ribalta, the founder of the Spanish school of Dramatic Realism; Saints Sebastian and Irene (1682) by Jose Ribera; St Lawrence (1636), King St Fernando III (1630s) and The Childhood of the Virgin (late 1650s-1660s) by Francisco de Zurbaran; Luncheon (1630s) and Portrait of Count Olivares (c.1640) by Diego Velazquez. In addition, the Hermitage's Spanish collection includes 13 works by Bartolome Esteban Murillo including two Biblical epics - Isaac Blessing Jacob and Jacob's Ladder (1665-1670), The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1665-1670) - and the genre painting Boy with a Dog (1650). The late-18th, early 19th century Spanish school is represented by Goya's Portrait of Antonia Zarate (1811).