'Victorious Hannibal, who for the first time looks at Italy from the Alps'
The news has been released this morning on social networks, through one of the already legendary videos of the Prado Museum on Instagram. “It is an extraordinarily happy day for the Prado Museum and it is because this picture that we have behind, Hannibal winner, is incorporated into the permanent collection of the Prado Museum and it does so, once again, thanks to the generosity of the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado”, said Miguel Falomir, director of the art gallery.
In this way it was announced that the victorious Hannibal, who for the first time looks at Italy from the Alps, the first documented work of the painter Francisco de Goya, became part of the institution's permanent collection.
Although the painting was already exhibited in the galleries of the art gallery, it was owned by the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation, which acquired it for 3.3 million euros and has decided to donate it as the first of the events scheduled to celebrate his 40th anniversary.
In this regard, Nuria de Miguel, director of the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation, highlighted in the same Instagram video that this is "magnificent news also for the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation and, therefore, for his 40,000 friends because, in the end, that generosity to which the director alludes is not from the institution, but from each one of the friends. Thanks to his donations, from time to time, we are able to make these types of purchases and donations to the museum”.
Victorious Hannibal, who for the first time looks at Italy from the Alps is one of the most important compositions of Goya's youth stage and, with him, the art gallery completes one of the few chronological gaps in its collection of the artist
“It is a fundamental work in Goya's career, painted in 1771 in Rome for a competition at the Parma Academy. It is the most important work in Goya's early years, the one that best explains Goya's beginnings. It is a work that he conscientiously prepared. Some of the preparatory studies appear in the italian notebook , which is also a fundamental work and which was also a donation from the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation to the Prado Museum”, Falomir assured.
The work 'Victor Hannibal, who for the first time looks at Italy from the Alps' by Goya donated by the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation exhibited in room 35 of the Villanueva building
With this donation we wanted to also honor the memory of Professor Calvo Serraller, one of the founding members, Vice President of the Board of Trustees of the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation and director of its academic line, who was director of the museum institution when, in 1993, Jesús Urrea attributed the authorship of the work to Goya.
After this first act to commemorate its four decades of existence, the Foundation will continue the celebration with the edition of a book about its history and will end with an exhibition in the Prado rooms, in which, for the first time, all the works donated by the Foundation can be seen together.