Sketchbook by the studio of Rubens (Bordes’s manuscript). S. XVII, Madrid, Biblioteca Museo Nacional del Prado
The Museo del Prado acquires the Juan Bordes Library The Museo del Prado has announced the recent acquisition of the Juan Bordes Library, including an important notebook of sketches by the studio of Rubens.]]>
January 28, 2015, source: Museo del Prado
This is one of the most important bibliographical holdings in the world for the study of the human figure, consisting of treatises and drawing manuals from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Within this acquisition, the Museum has received as a donation a sketchbook by the studio of Rubens. It is currently considered the closest to the lost original by the master and also includes two original works by his hand.
The Juan Bordes Library is a unique example of a bibliographical holding specialised in the key areas within artists’ training and the theory of the human figure.
Comprising around 600 volumes assembled by Bordes, the library focuses on texts and manuscripts that were used in the training of artists from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Due to their functional nature, these texts have not in the past merited the attention of bibliophiles or art historians. As Gombrich noted in his book Art and Illusion: “It is no mere paradox to say that the rarity of these books in our libraries is symptomatic of their past importance. They were simply, used, torn and handled in workshops and studios, and even surviving ones are often poorly bound and incomplete.”
As a result, these manuals and treatises constitute an extremely valuable holding for a knowledge of the methods employed in the training of artists and amateurs in studios and academies. They also tell us about the evolution of aesthetics and the dissemination of artistic models.
The Bordes Library is structured intosix large sections, organised to reflect the key disciplines in an artist’s training, in addition to a group of manuscripts of different types, notably the sketchbook by Rubens received as a donation.
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Prado Museum “exhibits” its Rubens on the Web (news, 2010)
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