Auckland Castle’s Spanish Gallery at Sotheby’s New York

The exhibition shows works from the permanent collection of The Auckland Project in Bishop Auckland, England.

The Auckland Project is an inspiring initiative to use culture and heritage as a catalyst for regeneration and to reinvigorate the town of Bishop Auckland, England. It showcases a permanent collection of artworks at the Auckland Castle. The works presented at Sotheby’s New York are a small but significant part of the permanent collection of the new Spanish Gallery at the Auckland Castle. The Gallery was conceived, as part of The Auckland Project, to put into context the fine set of Zurbarán paintings of Jacob and His Twelve Sons, which have been in Auckland Castle since 1756. The collection also holds works lent by private collectors and by institutions such as the Museo Nacional del Prado and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.

About the Spanish Gallery

Providing context for Zurbarán’s Jacob and His Twelve Sons in Auckland Castle, the Spanish Gallery is the first museum in the UK dedicated to the arts and cultures of the Spanish world. It presents artworks from the medieval period to the present day, emphasizing the Spanish Golden Age. To date, the core collection contains around sixty works (a number which is still growing), of which around ten are sculptures.

The purpose of the Spanish Gallery is not to showcase works solely by the great giants of Spanish painting, but rather to reveal to the public the artistic riches that lie within the work of talented painters lesser-known beyond the Iberian shores. The poetic beauty of the Penitent Magdalene by the Spanish Caravaggesque painter Juan Bautista Maíno, or the vivid depiction of La Perra de Graus by Francisco Bayeu (an artist long overshadowed by the work of his son-in-law Goya), are examples of such riches on display.