The Herrera Chapel comes to life at the Prado with frescoes by Carracci
The Prado Museum has inaugurated the reconstruction of the Herrera Chapel, one of the most extraordinary Italian Baroque works, allowing visitors to admire the frescoes by Annibale Carracci and his workshop in their original setting. The chapel, now destroyed, was named after Juan Enriquez de Herrera, the prestigious banker who owned it and decorated it with frescoes. It was located in the Church of Santiago de los Espanoles in Rome, a symbol of the Spanish Crown's power in the Italian capital.
The frescoes, painted by Carracci between 1602 and 1605, depict episodes from the life of San Diego de Alcalá, a friar who had been canonized 14 years earlier and to whom the nobleman attributed the healing of his son. The painter fell ill in 1605, so the work was completed by Francesco Albani and other collaborators, who attempted to remain faithful to his style.
However, the church that housed the precious chapel had to be demolished due to imminent risk of collapse in 1833, when it was decided to transfer the fresco fragments to canvas to prevent their loss. They were preserved between Barcelona, at the Museo Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), and Madrid, at the Pinacoteca Nacional.
Restored in the past, they were the subject of a major exhibition in 2022. The seven fragments of the frescoes kept at the Prado are now on display in the new permanent installation.
They can finally be admired in a new museum room, reminiscent of the original. The modular structure designed by architect Francisco Bocanegra, which respects the scale and character of the original chapel, was made possible thanks to the help of the Ohla construction group, the museum reports.
The mastery of Annibale Carracci and his collaborators, including Francesco Albani, Ludovico Carracci, Guido Reni, and Domenichino, is highlighted in a visual dialogue with other works from the same Bolognese school, exhibited in the same room four of the gallery in the Villanueva Building of the Prado.
The reconstruction allows us to rediscover a fundamental chapter in the history of European art and the spread of Baroque painting in Rome. It "invites reflection on how this group of such important artists contributed to shaping the Baroque language," as noted by David Garcia Cueto, head of the Prado's Collection of Italian and French Baroque Painting, during the presentation of the new chapel.
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