Earliest known copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa found at Spain’s Prado Museum

MADRID (AP).- A “Mona Lisa” copy owned by Spain’s Prado Museum was almost certainly painted by one of Leonardo da Vinci’s apprentices alongside the master himself as he did the original, museum officials said Wednesday. The stunning find of what the Prado now says is probably the earliest known copy of La Gioconda will give art lovers and experts an idea of what the Mona Lisa looked like back in the 16th century, said Gabriele Finaldi, the museum’s deputy director collections. [...]

Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve Returns to Public Display at the Prado Museum

MADRID.- The Museum is once again displaying the magnificent pair of paintings of Adam and Eve (1507) by Albrecht Dürer, following two years of intensive restoration to their pictorial surfaces and supports. The work on the two panels has benefited from the participation of a team of international experts, jointly co-ordinated by the Prado and the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles. The latter institution funded the restoration of the delicate panels on which the two paintings are executed, leading to [...]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir at Madrid’s El Prado Museum

MADRID.- The artistic career of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), one of the leading figures of Impressionism, is characterised by an all-absorbing passion for painting that led him to achieve great renown and popularity among his contemporaries. The outstanding group of 31 works by the artist, which are the finest among the collection of paintings by Renoir assembled by the American collector Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956), founder of the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute (Williamstown), will be displayed at the Prado in [...]