"L’exposition se distingue par une mise en regard originale entre estampes et antiquités, les figures rouges sur fond noir des vases grecs dialoguant avec les gravures."

.- Eugène Dutuit, Trésors en noir & blanc, Paris, Palais de l’Industrie, 1869

"Nel caso di Bosch, ad esempio, oltre al reperimento delle singole iconografie nel cosi detto Inferno musicale del Giardino delle delizie, occorre far atenzione alla resa di queste all'interno di in un caratteristico horror vacui che è, ovviamente, un richiamo stilistico alla generica tradizion e medioevale, ma allude molto francamente a una delle possibili iconografie dell'Inferno, che è quella del chaos magnum."

.- Caterina Limentani Virdis. Settantamila veli di luce e di ombra

"Although it was with the Adam and Eve of 1504 that Dürer chose to demonstrate the new mastery of human figure which he had acquired through studies of human proportion, the influence of his theoretical drawings is also evident in several earlier works (...) and the Standard Bearer all incorporate the classical 'contraposto' attitude which Dürer had acquired by studying copies of the Apollo Belvedere".

.- Dürer in America. Washington, 1971

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Mariano Moret Collection preserves the only print by Master AP documented in Spain.

Master AP is a mysterious anonymous artist active in Rome between 1550 and 1560 who is distinguished by the AP monogram that appears in all his works, but, What identity is hidden behind these initials?

Could they correspond to the famous architect Andrea Palladio?

Michael J. Waters develops a proposal for the identification of the enigmatic AP Master in the following article: Who was Master AP?

___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

THEME & VARIATIONS: FAMILY AND DEATH

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Michelangelo Buonarroti. The Punishment of Tityus. Black chalk, 1532. Royal Collection Trust

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

The latest album by Capella de Ministrers has been released with the title Música Grotesca.

Mariano Moret has collaborated with a text on Leonardo da Vinci. The album cover and booklet are illustrated with etchings from the Mariano Moret Collection.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

The Rainbow Beneath the Black. Homoerotic Visions in Old Master Prints offers an unprecedented look at early engravings and at the Mariano Moret Collection by investigating the mechanisms of desire and the proactive gaze, along with ways of observing and the desire to see.

The exhibition offers a journey through five centuries of homosexual desire in a collection of prints by some of the most important engravers in the history of this artistic discipline, covering a chronological arc that goes from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century. Engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi, Jacopo de’Barbari, Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, Barthel and Sebald Beham, Heinrich Aldegrever, Hieronymus Hopfer and Jan de Bisschop are juxtaposed with a careful selection of modern and contemporary works of art with the intention of showing the persistence of certain ideas and models over the centuries. These are works that introduce us to a masculine universe of prints about men, made by men for other men. To quote Juan Gil-Albert: “A labyrinth for men only”.

It is not a question of exclusively exhibiting works with a homosexual theme, which is very difficult in prints from this period, nor of solely including prints that have come from the burins of homosexual artists. The exhibition deals with the methods used to represent a sexuality that was proscribed and denied for centuries. That was considered a heinous and therefore unspeakable sin. Unthinkable and therefore unrepresentable. Not represented, only sketched. A cryptic, coded, barely expressed desire that feeds on flashes and snippets. An eye trained to identify clues, read between the lines and decipher codes. A look trained to detect other looks.

Male nudity does not seem exceptional today, but for centuries and until relatively recently, it was unusual and difficult to contemplate in a society that considered homosexuality a “socially repugnant vice, a sexual aberration, a psychological perversion and a hormonal defect”. Throughout this time, the prints that make up the exhibition served as a support for a forbidden desire and as a refuge for a proscribed gaze that was more accustomed to concealment than to representation. Visitors to the exhibition will have to decipher the symbols that, over the centuries, have served to encode a homoeroticism that is sometimes overt, but in many cases latent. A homoeroticism that is intuited, glimpsed or imagined as a vision or a mirage provoked by desire.

Every exhibition is an exercise in observation, but, on this occasion, observation becomes voyeurism. Through the vindication of passionate contemplation, we are invited to examine the works with an impure gaze and to unravel the mystery of desire, to determine whether it lies in the hand of the artist or in the eye of the beholder.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

Lucas van Leyden. Cain Killing Abel. Engraving, 1529. Colección Mariano Moret

____________________________________________________________________________________

THEME & VARIATIONS: THE FLAGELLATION

Lombardy (?) , late 15th century. The Flagellation. Point of the brush and brown and light gray ink, brown and grayish brown wash, over traces of black chalk, heightened with white (partly oxidized). The Met

Hendrik Goltzius. The Flagellation. Engraving, 1597. Colección Mariano Moret

____________________________________________________________________________________

THEME & VARIATIONS: GOLTZIUS & RUBENS

Hendrik Goltzius. Christ before Pilate. Engraving, 1596. Colección Mariano Moret

Peter Paul Rubens. Christ before Pilate. Pen and brown ink on laid paper, c. 1598-1600. Städel Museum

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

Monogrammist AP. Plate depicting lower part of a Roman pilaster with acanthus leaves, eagle and other birds and insects. Etching, 1555. Colección Mariano Moret

___________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________ç

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Vicente Victoria. Penitent Magdalene. Oil on canvas, c. 1673 - 1712. Museu de Belles Arts de Xàtiva

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ludovico Carracci (Bologna, 1555-1619). Head of a sleeping boy. Red chalk. Christie's.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jacopo de' Barbari. Apollo and Diana. Engraving, c. 1503. Colección Mariano Moret

Gentleman España magazine has interviewed Mariano Moret for its September issue and dedicates two pages to the Mariano Moret Collection.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

22/04/2020

Dr. María Molina León, Founding Director Museo Universidad Panamericana, interviews Mariano Moret on Museos con teleobjetivo.

Link to the podcast

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On the occasion of the exhibition Teste Grottesche. Etchings after Leonardo da Vinci Grotesque Heads in the Mariano Moret Collection an english catalogue has been published. You can buy the catalogue online at LLIG shop.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Valencia Fine Arts Museum has scheduled a cycle of four conferences as a complementary activity to the exhibition Teste Grottesche. Etchings after Leonardo da Vinci Grotesque Heads in the Mariano Moret Collection. The conferences are sponsored by Sbeem and will take place on January 14, 21 and 28 and February 4 at 6:30 p.m. in the Museum Salón de Actos. Admission is free.

January 14, 6:30 p.m. Lecture by Mariano Moret (Curator of the exhibition): Wenzel Hollar y el Conde de Arundel: coleccionando a Leonardo da Vinci.

January 28, 6:30 p.m. Lecture by María de Mar Albero (Universidad de Murcia): “Rostros, espejos del alma”: La expresión de las emociones y la fisiognomía según Leonardo da Vinci, los seguidores de El Bosco y Giovanni B. Azzolino.

February 4, 6:30 p.m. Lecture by Mariano Moret (Curator of the exhibition): En búsqueda del Leonardo perdido: La danza morisca de Daniel Hopfer y sus antecedentes en la obra de Leonardo da Vinci.

February 11, 6:30 p.m. Lecture by Carles Magraner (Director of Capella de Ministrers): Leonardo da Vinci y la música grotesca.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

15/12/2019

La fascinante deformidad. Música grotesca

Concert by Capella de Ministrers on the occasion of the exhibition Teste Grottesche. Etchings after Leonardo da Vinci Grotesque Heads in the Mariano Moret Collection. The concert program has been specially designed for the occasion by the musicologist Pepe Rey who will also offer a conference on this repertoire on January 21. The concert includes the voices of Delia Agúndez, Hugo Bolívar, Jorge Morata and Antonio Sabuco, the instrumentalists Carles Magraner, Robert Cases and Pau Ballester and the dancer and actor Toni Aparisi.

Concert teaser

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

CURRENT EXHIBITION

The Mariano Moret Collection holds a small but exceptional group of prints derived from Leonardo da Vinci drawings, which makes it unique in Spain. In some cases, as in the etchings of Wenzel Hollar, the relationship with the works of the Florentine genius is direct. They copy Leonardo's well-known drawings which were part of the collection of Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, at the time of the creation of the prints in the 17th century. Most of these extraordinary drawings, exceptional testimony of Leonardo's mastermind, currently belong to the Royal Collection and are preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. In other cases, Leonardo's original drawings were lost, so Hollar relied on old copies made by some disciples that were very close to Leonardo, such as his favorite pupil Francesco Melzi.

The Morris Dancers by Daniel Hopfer is another example of a linked print from the Mariano Moret Collection with the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Although evident, this dependence is not as obvious as in Hollar's etchings, since the original drawing that could serve Hopfer as a model to make his print is not preserved.

In this sense, while the exhibition shows some little-known and largely unpublished works, an attempt has been made to unravel the dependency network that connect them to each other, looking for the original sources that could inspire them.

Teste Grottesche exhibition presentation video

____________________________________________________________________________________

The exhibition Kleinmeister. El legado de Durero en la Colección Mariano Moret in the last issue (june 2019) of Print Quarterly.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

THE MARIANO MORET COLLECTION IN FIG BILBAO

A selection of prints from the exhibition Kleinmeister. The Legacy of Dürer in the Mariano Moret Collection, which was recently shown at the Valencia Fine Arts Museum, will be on display from November 15 to 18 at FIG Bilbao, the Art on Paper Festival that will once again make the Basque capital the epicenter of Printmaking in Europe. Visitors to the festival can also enjoy the specially designed augmented reality and virtual reality multimedia contents that will be accessible through tablets and VR glasses present in the exhibition.

____________________________________________________________________________________

DÜRER AND THE PROPORTIONS OF HUMAN BODY

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

CURRENT EXHIBITION

On the occasion of the exhibition Kleinmeister. The Legacy of Dürer in the Mariano Moret Collection, an english catalogue has been published. You can buy the catalogue online at LLIG shop.

____________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

CURRENT EXHIBITION

The Kleinmeister exhibition in Ars Magazine: link to the article

_____________________________________________________________________________________

CURRENT EXHIBITION

Little Masters’ prints can be regarded as products of the most advanced technology of the first half of the sixteenth century, since they were made possible by the breakthroughs in optics which facilitated production of the magnifying lenses that were an indispensable requirement for executing works on such a small scale. The last section of the Kleinmeister exhibition is therefore devoted to presenting Old Master prints through the medium of museographic resources at the forefront of twenty-first-century technology. For this purpose an application for mobile devices has been specially created for this exhibition, making it possible to access a range of augmented reality and virtual reality content. This content is also accessible in the exhibition room through tablets and VR goggles, enabling visitors to immersively enter a sixteenth-century print workshop or to participate actively in the engraving, inking and printing processes of some of the prints included in the exhibition. The aim is to provide an attractive and educational way of bringing Old Master prints closer to the general public, and especially to a younger audience, which is very receptive to these technologies.

____________________________________________________________________________________

CURRENT EXHIBITION

27/05/2018

Kleine Musik für Kleinmeister

Concert by Capella de Ministrers with a program of German Renaissance music specially created for the exhibition Kleinmeister. The legacy of Dürer in the Mariano Moret Collection. Little songs by Ludwig Senfl, Michael Praetorius, Melchior Vulpius, Johann Walter, Tielman Susato, Heinrich Isaac, Caspar Othmayr and Leonhard Lechner. Kleine Musik für Kleinmeister. Little music for the Little Masters.

The concert will take place in the Ambassador Vich's Courtyard. Admission is free until full capacity is reached.

The Ambassador Vich's Courtyard is a Renaissance cortile built around 1525 with Genoa marble for the palace of Jerónimo Vich y Valterra, ambassador of Ferdinand the Catholic in Rome. Located in Valencia, it is one of the first Renaissance buildings of the Iberian Peninsula.

Concert teaser

____________________________________________________________________________________

17/05/2018

Exhibition inaugural event. Kleinmeister: The Legacy of Dürer in the Mariano Moret Collection.

On May 17, the Kleinmeister exhibition was inaugurated at the València Fine Arts Museum. The inauguration was attended by the Honorary Consul of Germany in Valencia, D. Gaspar Ripoll, the director of the València Fine Arts Museum, Mr. Jose Ignacio Casar Pinazo, Mrs. María José Navarro Toledo, President of Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Bellas Artes de València and Mr. Mariano Moret, curator of the exhibition and lender of a large part of the exhibited works. Among the numerous audience was a broad representation of the world of Valencian art and culture, among which we must highlight the President of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos, Mr. Manuel Muñoz Ibáñez, Mr. Carles Magraner, President of the CdM Capella de Ministrers Foundation, Mr. Felipe Jerez, Director of the Department of Art History of the Universitat of València, Mr. José Galindo, Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universitat of València and Mr. Ricardo Forriols, Director of the Cultural Activities Department of the Universitat de Politècnica de València.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Kleinmeister. The Legacy of Dürer in the Mariano Moret Collection

The transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century in Germany was marked by a series of important changes which brought the Middle Ages to a close and ushered in the Early Modern era, making the years around the turn of the century a fascinating period in history. Some of the factors that sparked off these transformations were the invention of printing by Gutenberg in 1440, the arrival in Germany of the innovations of the Renaissance, facilitated by Albrecht Dürer’s two journeys to Italy in 1494 and 1505, and the Protestant Reformation set in motion by Luther in 1517 when he nailed his 95 theses against indulgences to the door of the church in Wittenberg. All these events helped to bring about a golden age of printmaking in Germany, whose presiding genius was incontestably Dürer, one of the most important printmakers in history. His virtuosity and revolutionary technical discoveries expanded the possibilities of this art to previously unsuspected limits, especially when we consider that this young artistic discipline had emerged only a few decades before. Around Dürer, in the thriving city of Nuremberg, arose an important group of printmakers known as the Little Masters (Kleinmeister), who included the Beham brothers, Georg Pencz and Heinrich Aldegrever. These artists also contributed decisively to the brilliance of that crucial period in the history of printmaking. The Little Masters were characterised by producing prints in small formats, many of them true miniatures, which required enormous technical skill to execute. They depicted a wide variety of subjects in their works, from the most canonical and elevated, such as biblical or mythological scenes, to the most worldly and popular, such as representations of everyday life which gave rise to some of the first genre scenes in the history of art. Among their works we also find prints that were highly controversial for their markedly erotic content, as well as numerous ornament prints which radiate exuberant creativity and fantasy. The lives of the Little Masters, true citizens of their time, were as turbulent and enthralling as the age in which they found themselves living, and this shines through in their artistic creations, adding to their appeal.

Through 141 works — 127 prints by various German artists belonging to the Mariano Moret Collection and 14 by Dürer from the Biblioteca Nacional de España — the Kleinmeister exhibition offers a wide-ranging overview of this fascinating period of art history. This is the first time a Spanish museum has devoted an exhibition exclusively to the work of the Little Masters.

It also presents an important series of prints by the Hopfers, a family of printmakers credited with inventing etching. This complex intaglio technique was to be the form of expression favoured by future geniuses of printmaking such as Rembrandt, Piranesi and Goya.

____________________________________________________________________________________ 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The Mariano Moret Collection has embarked in the last two years on an ambitious acquisitions program that has resulted in a very important increase of the funds that compose the collection. Works as important as the 35 prints of Toonneel des Wereldts Ontdeckende De Ongestuymigheden in Ydelheden (Sample of the Vanity and the Variety of the World) by Pieter Bruegel, unique in a Spanish collection, the Morris Dancers by Daniel Hopfer, various rare prints by Lucas van Leyden as The Suicide of Lucretia, Woman with the Hind and The Surgeon, among others, as well as two important groups of German Renaissance prints and ornamental prints, all them make the Mariano Moret Collection the reference collection in Spain for the study of capital artists such as Lucas van Leyden and the Little Masters, as well as for the investigation of some topics associated with the diffusion of the printed image as the Ornamental Print and the Weibermacht or the Power of women:

___________________________________________________________________________________

Pliny the Elder uses the word Gryllus in his Natural History for a class of grotesque figures first used in painting by Antiphilus of Alexandria who painted a figure in a ridiculous costume, known jocosely as the Gryllus. The word Gryllus is commonly used to denote any grotesque monster which is made up by several human and animal heads. It can be a combination of animal and man, or dualities of male and female, old and young. A transmutation of souls, manifested into a single magical entity. These fantastic devices were more than mere artists' fancies and were used as Talismans and Amulets according to the ideas they portrayed, being sometimes Astrological in their significance and at other times representative of some form of Grecian or Roman religion. Plutarch writes that these composite objects were fixed up to ward off witchcraft and the evil effects of the first glance of the Evil Eye, it being thought that if the mischief-working eye could be diverted from the object to be protected on to the strange and ridiculous figures represented by the Grylli the glance would be absorbed and its effects destroyed.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Diocesan Museum of Barbastro-Monzón shows a series of 14 anonymous paintings representing the Twelve Apostles, Christ Savior and the Virgin Mary. The paintings come from the Monastery of San Victorián and were painted in the 17th century by an anonymous artist. It is a series that accurately reproduces some of the engravings from the Creed series by Hendrik Goltzius.

  Link to the Barbastro-Monzón Docesan Museum

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you have ever had a burning question about the Mariano Moret Collection, now is your chance to ask. We are excited to be among more than 1400 museums from 57 countries participating in #AskACurator Day on Sept 13 2017. Tweet your questions to @ColeccionMMoret and make sure to use the #AskACurator hashtag.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Mariano Moret Collection has loaned three Anzo works to a major retrospective of the artist at the IVAM.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The richness and variety of the works that compose the Mariano Moret Collection allows diverse approaches to it from various plot lines and from different points of view. To this end, we have created several thematic sections that allow a deeper knowledge of the collection, in addition to the classification of works by schools. The first thematic sections are Ornament and Weibermacht or the Power of Women, and soon they will be added more thematic units.

This rare engraving by Theodor de Bry is the only known print that presents the mysterious monogram QMS, a signature that has not been deciphered.

Engravings, etchings and woodcuts by old and modern masters being part II of the Levy collection to be sold at unrestricted public sale on    March 29th and 30th, 1916 under the management of the American Art Association Art Galleries. Madison Square South. New York