Museo Ibercaja - Zaragoza, Spain

Prosperity And Artistic Wealth

In the 16th century Zaragoza enjoyed - one of its greatest moments of economic strength and artistic splendour.  The nobility and upper classes of the City built their Renaissance -style homes to express both, their wealth and their social standing.

In 1536 work began on the home of minor noble and merchant Jeronimo Cosida and his wife. Violonte de Albion , in Calle Mayor in the centre of Zaragoza, opposite the church of Santa Cruz.

In charge of the project was the experienced master builder Juan de Lanuza, who completed the work without delay.

A Building From The Aragonese Renaissance

The building shows us a typical three-storey home of a well-to-do family of the period, the ground
floor, opening onto a semi-public interior courtyard, was given over to services and storage, the main-floor held the living quarters and bedrooms, and the top floor , the one with the belevedere overlooking the street, which served as a dropped ceiling and on attic.

The current facade is not exactly the same it was originally. In the 16th Century it would not have had the live balconies it sports today, instead having large, wooden framed windows. The sober elegant style of the brickwork has been conserved, along with the arched belvedere and the impressive eaves with their pronounced overhang.

The courtyard epitomizes the renaissance style perfectly, its ringed coloums, with their fluted shafts, are topped by capitals decorated with exquisite floral and figurative motifs and supporting the gallery of rounded arches on top floor.

Goya In Zaragoza

Goya in the Ibercaja Museum

The work of Aargon's most universal painter. Francisco de Goya, is the care around which the Ibercaja Museum's exhibitions are structed.

The collection's pieces are assembled with a single central reference point in mind. Goya.
As such, the artistic precursors of the master artist are shown, along with his closest contemporaries, including Giaquinto, Maella, Bayeu and Mengs.

The "Salon Dorada" or "Gold Room", houses a magnificent collection of the painter's works, on different media, with very varied subject matters and covering a long period of time.

Of particular importance is the print room, where prints from the five series that Goya drew and engraved or ethched between 1778 and 1825 are on display. Ca\prices, Disasters of war, Bulfighting, Follies and Bulls of Bordeaux.

Goya: Genius of Portraiture

Goya's exceptional talent as a portratist is represented in the Museum by four important works.

The self-portrait, painted in around 1775 and the first known self-portrait of the artist; the portrait of Queen Maria Luisa de Parma, and that of Felix de Azara, one of the very best portraits ever painted by Goya.

A Grand Collection

The Museum constitutes a permanent tribute to one of  Zaragoza's most illustrious figures , Jose' Camon Aznar - professor, academician historian writer and art critic.

Camon was also a passionate scholar of his fellow citizen, and genius, Goya.

His great knowledge of painting and both historical and contemporary sculpture, along with his passion for collecting, allowed him to build up an important collection of artworks.

The bequest of Camon Aznar was enlarged in 2008 by a number of important works from the collections of Ibercaja and the Aragonese Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country.


Museo Ibercaja Camon Aznar
Espoz y Mina, 23
Zaragoza

Tel:   +34 976 397387
Fax:   +34  976 399326

Email:   museo@abrasocial.ibercaja.es
Web:     www.museo.ibercaja.es