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Spanish Art at the Bowes

The Bowes Museum collection of Spanish art is second in the UK only to that of the National Gallery and was acquired along with other works by the Bowes' agent, at a sale in Paris in 1862. Among its treasures are key works by El Greco (1541-1614) and Goya (1746-1828). The museum's 2010 exhibition on Goya highlights his key work 'Interior of a Prison' (1793-4). This work offers a very different kind of subject from El Greco's eloquently Catholic 'The Tears of Saint Peter' (c.1580), while generating an equally intense expressivity. The museum's Director Adrian Jenkins discusses these works, with particular emphasis on Goya's breakthrough into darker subjects.