100,000 visitors so far at “El Siglo de Oro: The Era of Velázquez”

06.10.2016
Gemäldegalerie

María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral and Roberto Contini were on hand in the exhibition they curated, El Siglo de Oro: The Era of Velázquez, to greet the unsuspecting 100,000th visitor: Simone Monnerat from Porrentruy in French-speaking Switzerland.

Simone was about to enter the gallery with her mother, Elisa. The mother and daughter used to live in Berlin and spent three years here. Since moving away, they regularly enjoy spending short breaks in the German capital. And this time round they had decided to visit the Gemäldegalerie to see "El Siglo de Oro".

The exhibition runs until October 30 and, with over 130 masterpieces on loan from all over the world, it showcases Spanish painting and sculpture dating from el Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Golden Age, in all its fascinating variety. "There are only a few comparable periods of art history that produced paintings and sculptures in a quality, complexity, and richness such as this", said Michael Eissenhauer, Director-General of the Staatliche Museen and Director of the Gemäldegalerie and Skulpturensammlung. "There has never been an exhibition in Germany that combines 17th century Spanish painting and sculpture in this breadth and quality."