From 13 May, the Galería Álvaro Alcázar presents the solo exhibition of the British painter Simon Edmondson. It invites us to discover three previously unpublished series in charcoal and oil, which evoke what, according to experts in the field, could be the last works painted by Velázquez, which disappeared in the fire that destroyed the Alcázar in Madrid in 1734. Edmondson recreates here the mythological series documented as having been painted by the genius of the “Siglo de Oro” for the royal site around 1660, while the Prado Museum exhibits Mercury and Argus, the only one to survive the fire.

The royal register of 1686 mentions, along with Mercury and Argos, three paintings depicting the Ovidian myths of Venus and Adonis, Apollo and Marsyas and Psyche and Cupid, although it omits any mention of which moment of the story was depicted. Edmondson has followed the same technical and formal scheme used by Velázquez in Mercury and Argus to illustrate the scenes, using his own creativity to choose the moment and composition and bring them back to life. Moreover, thanks to his study of the actual inventory, the artist has succeeded in reproducing its proportions and its location within the famous “Salón de los Espejos”. The arrangement of the paintings, in the form of a mythological frieze, would be the same as in the royal site, thus transporting us to the palatial atmosphere of the reign of Philip IV.

On the other hand, the exhibition includes around ten works, some recent and others from different stages of the painter’s long artistic career.