Until 13 February, the Museo del Prado presents the exhibition Tornaviaje. Ibero-American Art in Spain, sponsored by the Fundación AXA, which tells a little known fact: after the conquest of America and until Independence, more artistic objects of American origin arrived in Spain than Flemish or Italian, and that the traffic of works of art between both sides of the Atlantic was not only unidirectional, from Spain to America, as is usually pointed out.
These thousands of objects, many by indigenous or mixed-race artists, often feature materials, themes and techniques unknown in the metropolis, and their production served a variety of purposes: reaffirmation of the dominance of the metropolis, the identity aspirations of the Creole elites, or documentary, devotional and aesthetic motivations.
The exhibition includes more than a hundred American works preserved for centuries in Spanish cultural and religious institutions; pieces that have become part of our everyday life and form part of our historical and cultural heritage, although they have sometimes lost memory of their origin.
