Detail of 'An artist', by Aurelia Navarro

The Female Perspective

In recent years, the Prado Museum has shown a strong commitment to highlighting the role of women in the art world whether as creators, patrons, collectors, or as subjects of the male gaze. This has been achieved through different initiatives including monographic exhibitions and guided tours of its permanent collection, as well as scientific meetings, conferences, lectures, and specialized scholarships in its Study Centre. We are now bringing this experience to our website under the title The Female Perspective, with the goal of sharing what has been accomplished and to encourage new research.

Art by women artists

107 objects

The art work of the day

Marine

Marine

López Castrillo, Flora

(1912)


A much beloved pupil of Antonio Muñoz Degraín, Flora López Castrillo constitutes an exception among the Spanish women painters of her time owing to her professional specialisation in landscapes and marines. This work, which clearly shows the influence of her teacher, is inspired by some lines from the poem La Galatea, which was included in a Renaissance pastoral novel by Gaspar Gil Polo entitled La Diana enamorada (Enamoured Diana). On the basis of these references to classical culture, the artist produced a dreamlike Symbolist interpretation of the scene.

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Women Artists

Picture of Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun
Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun

Contemplating the possibility of alternative art histories from a critical perspective allows us to understand that this field is alive, in constant transformation, and in dialogue with contemporary shifts in thought.

Since what is not named does not exist, this section is devoted to naming each of the women artists who are part of the Museum's collections. Some works come from royal collections and have been in the Museum since its opening like the ones by Artemisia Gentileschi, Sofonisba Anguissola, or Clara Peeters. Others have been incorporated through donations, such as "El Cid" by Rosa Bonheur, or via recent acquisitions, like the work of Maria Luisa Puiggener, aimed to complete the artistic production narrative within the Prado Museum’s chronological framework.

This virtual archive, that echoes Griselda Pollock's Virtual Feminist Museum, contributes to charting and making visible new paths in the knowledge and research concerning our collections.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

The Female Perspective Project

The history of the Prado Museum is closely linked to the artistic patronage efforts carried out by some of the most representative women of the European royal houses, from Isabel I of Castile to Isabel II of Bourbon.

The Female Perspective project aims to shed light on these extraordinary contributions by directing our gaze to new narratives that offer us the opportunity to understand the decisive role played by these women in shaping the Museum whether as collectors and promoters or by supporting decisively its founding and preservation.

Picture of Queen Christina of Sweden, on Horseback
Queen Christina of Sweden, on Horseback (detail).

Recommended itineraries

Thematic Routes and Exhibitions

Since 2016 when the Prado presented its first exhibition dedicated to a female painter, Clara Peeters, the Museum has proposed various thematic routes and exhibitions to highlight the role of women in the art world. In some cases, the focus has been on gender issues like in the exhibition Uninvited Guests. On other occasions, the emphasis has been given to works that were previously hidden, like in the case of the exhibition La mirada del otro with the work "El Cid" by Rosa Bonheur.

Lectures

The lectures that the Prado offers each Wednesday and Saturday as well as those inserted in different programs, have frequently delved into a knowledge of cultural history in tune with gender studies, with female artistic agency in different historical periods, and have cultivated the knowledge of female artists that have a strong presence in the Museum’s collections.

A frame from the lecture by Estrella de Diego
Highlighted lecture A vueltas con el canon y los museos

Estrella de Diego

Estrella de Diego

Voices of the Prado

A bilingual documentary archive (Spanish-English) that captures the intra-historical accounts of female workers and collaborators who have dedicated daily efforts to the preservation and transformation of an institution as iconic and complex as the Prado Museum.

It includes a wealth of first-hand experiences spanning from the 1940s to 2019 that are inseparable from the broader context, and that reflect the evolution of Spanish society and politics during this period.  See Voices of the Prado

Pilar Silva

Scholarships

Ana Baeza Ruiz

In July 2022 the Prado Museum and Allen & Overy awarded their first postdoctoral research scholarship in gender studies to Dr. Ana Baeza Ruiz for her project Female Childhoods in the Collections of the Museo del Prado.

The Allen & Overy – Prado Museum Gender Studies Scholarship, endowed with 38,000€, rewards a research project related to gender studies that contributes to a better understanding of women artists, female patronage, and other relevant topics related to gender studies that are significant for the museum’s cultural and social history.

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