Oh So Artsy: Treasures from the House of Alba at SMU's Meadows Museum

Pierre Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919),
Girl with Hat with Cherries, 1880.
Oil on canvas. Colección Duques de Alba

Treasures from the House of Alba: 500 Years of Art and Collecting will open at the SMU Meadows Museum on September 11 and will display some of the finest examples from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries up to the end of the twentieth century, in a display of continuity unparalleled by other large European collections.

For more than five hundred years, the Alba family has formed part of the most important aristocratic lineages in Europe, not only because of its military, political, and social significance, but also due to the relevance of its cultural patronage and its art collecting.  This exhibition displays a broad selection of works by Van Gogh, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Renoir, Sargent, and many more.

The exhibit features 140 palace objects—including the personal papers of Christopher Columbus and 19th-century furniture created for Napoleon III—that tell the story of Europe, most of which have never been seen outside of Spain. The exhibition features paintings, illuminated manuscripts, books, historic documents, antiquities, prints, sculpture, drawings, and other objects.

Admission for this exhibit will be $12. Learn more by visiting http://www.meadowsmuseumdallas.org/about_Alba.htm.

Fan of Empress Eugenia de Montijo, from 1852-1870. Mother-of-pearl sticks carved with flowers and vegetable motifs; mount bearing a likeness of the Empress after a portrait by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, flanked by the initials of Napoleón III, scenes of their wedding, and the hunts in Compiègne. Colección Duques de Alba

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640), Charles V and the Empress Isabella, c. 1628. Oil on canvas.
Colección Duques de Alba

The Meadows Museum is located at 5900 Bishop Boulevard, just north of the Mockingbird Lane entrance to the SMU campus. Free underground parking is available. Media with audio or video recording equipment must sign in with Security at the Museum’s back entrance, on the east side of the building.

Hours of Operation:
Sunday 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Monday CLOSED
Tuesday-Friday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Thursdays until 9:00 p.m.
Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.