The Diplomat in Spain

García Casas, Barón, Miralles and Álvarez-Garcillán in front of the portraits./ Photo: TD 

Eduardo González. 11/03/2017

The pioneering institution of public diplomacy in Spain, Casa America, commemorates this year its first quarter of a century with a series of activities whose first chapter has been the return to the Palace of the portraits of the Marquises of Linares, which have been provided by Prado Museum for a period of five years renewable. 

“The Marquises would be very happy if they knew that the return of their portraits would coincide with the 25th anniversary of such an important center, ,said Secretary of State for Cooperation and Ibero-America Fernando García Casas during the press conference presenting the activities.

After 25 years, “the Ibero-Americans of the two shores we are closer, equal and solidarity”, he continued. “Latin America is today a region without conflicts of civilizations or clashes of religions, the last guerrilla has disappeared and is a zone of peace and denuclearized”, he added.

On the occasion of the anniversary, Casa de América has programmed a series of activities, such as a series of conferences (among the speakers include García Casas himself, on March 21, Enrique Iglesias, Rebeca Grynspan, Julio María Sanguinetti and Jorge Edwards), a cycle of meetings with American ambassadors (ambassador from Argentina and Costa Rica have already participated), a public forum with representatives of the High Patronage and many other cultural activities, said the director general of Casa America, Santiago Miralles.

[hr style=”single”]

The institution announces conferences, public forums and other activities to commemorate its first quarter century

[hr style=”single”]

The first milestone of these celebrations came yesterday, with the return and first exhibition of the portraits of Don Jose Maria de Murga and Rolid, Marquis de Linares, and his wife, Dona Romualda Ossorio and Ortega, painted in 1888 by Francisco Pradilla And Ortiz.

These two paintings left the building in 1940, when the palace ceased to be used as a private residence, and even were sold at auction in 1958, but in 1990 they were confiscated and in 2004 they were incorporated into the funds of the Prado Museum exclusively for preservation, according to Javier Barón, curator of nineteenth-century painting at the museum. In 2016, the works were transferred to the museum’s collection and the Baron himself proposed to move it to his original salon in the palace, since “they were designed for this particular place”.

After its foundation in July 1992, it was decided that Casa de América should be installed in the Linares Palace, a building that “had been abandoned for 75 years and was restored with the challenge that it should look like in the time of the Marquises and, at the same time, an intelligent building, and all that within a period of only 16 months”, explained María Álvarez-Garcillán, restorer of the Prado Museum and who coordinated the restoration work of the building.