Spanish Art in London - At Apsley House, Wallace Collection and National Gallery

In 1848 the great pioneer in the study of Spanish art, Sir William Stirling Maxwell, declared that ‘the private collections of England could probably furnish forth a gallery of Spanish pictures second only to that of the Queen of Spain’. A great many of these pictures have since entered public collections throughout the country, making Great Britain one of the best places outside Spain to study Spanish art. Initially, it was the Peninsular War of 1808-1814 that broke the floodgates and provided a new market for Spanish art, and many more paintings were to leave Spain when the Spanish monasteries were dissolved in 1832.

One such private collection is the 1st Duke of Wellington’s at Apsley House. Displayed inside this aristocratic townhouse are numerous paintings taken from Madrid’s Royal Palace by Joseph Bonaparte during the Peninsular War and later given to Wellington by King Ferdinand of Spain.

The Wallace Collection includes Velázquez’s mesmerizing portrait of a Lady with a Fan as well as a rare work by the Sevillian artist, Alonso Cano, who was known as the ‘Michelangelo of Spain’.

The National Gallery owns 9 paintings by Velázquez that span his career, from his early beginnings in Seville to his courtly paintings for Philip IV in Madrid. Alongside Velázquez hang some of Murillo’s finest paintings including several large canvases that originally decorated the altars of Seville’s monasteries and convents. The National Gallery also prides itself on a small group of works by El Greco, an artist who became fashionable in the early 20th century, principally thanks to the art critic Roger Fry who compared the abstract quality of his work with Cézanne.