A GUIDE AND HANDBOOK TO THE ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY OF MADRID. ILLUSTRATED WITH 221 REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF OLD MASTERS. DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO H.R.H. PRINCESS HENRY OF BATTENBERG
This volume is an attempt to supplement the accurate but formal notes contained in the official catalogue of a picture gallery which is considered the finest in the world. It has been said that the day one enters the Prado for the first time is an important event like marriage, the birth of a child, or the coming into an inheritance; an experience of which one feels the effects to the day of one’s death.
The excellence of the Madrid gallery is the excellence of exclusion; it is a collection of magnificent gems. Here one becomes conscious of a fresh power in Murillo, and is amazed anew by the astonishing apparition of Velazquez; here is, in truth, a rivalry of miracles of art.
The task of selecting pictures for reproduction from what is perhaps the most splendid gallery of old masters in existence, was one of no little difficulty, but it is believed that the collection is representative, and that the letterpress will form a serviceable companion to the visitor to The Prado.
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MOSLEM RULE IN SPAIN, TOGETHER WITH A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTRUCTION, THE ARCHITECTURE, AND THE DECORATION OF THE MOORISH PALACE, WITH 460 ILLUSTRATIONS. DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO H.I.M. THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE
This volume is the third and abridged edition of a work which the author was inspired to undertake by the surpassing loveliness of the Alhambra, and by his disappointment in the discovery that no such thing as an even moderately adequate illustrated souvenir of “this glorious sanctuary of Spain” was obtainable. Keenly conscious of the want himself, he essayed to supply it, and the result is a volume that has been acclaimed with enthusiasm alike by critics, artists, architects, and archæologists.