The Focus-Abengoa Foundation launches a new tool to digitally disseminate its art collections devoted to the Baroque
In recent years, the assets of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation have increased notably with the creation of the Centro Velázquez in 2008 and the receipt of the legacy of Professor Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez in 2011. In order to adapt to the new technologies and disseminate its art collections online, since 2012 the Foundation has been working on an action plan that will allow it to manage its art collections more easily and effectively, and thus to ease access to its resources for researchers and anyone interested in them.
Thanks to its new multimedia programme, it is now possible to access much of the Foundation’s artistic collections with a detailed description and cataloguing which substantially improves knowledge of these collections at the highest level. The Focus-Abengoa Foundation’s ultimate goal is to promote the advancement of knowledge, to revitalise the debate on the Baroque period and ultimately to support the growth of society.
The collections available online are:
Room of Engravings
- Made up of 327 prints from the 16th to 20th centuries, this is a collection specialised in the iconography of the city of Seville which dates back to 1982. It is a unique collection of its kind, as well as a reference tool for any scholar interested in the history of Seville. It is organised by four broad chronological sections: prints from the Baroque period, prints from the Enlightenment, Romantic and Costumbrist prints and finally contemporary prints.1
Centro Velázquez
- Created after the Focus-Abengoa Foundation’s 2007 acquisition of the painting by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) Saint Rufina, one of the purposes of the centre is to recreate the historical and artistic universe in which the Sevillian genius lived from his early days in the city until his establishment in the Court as the painter to the king in 1624. The permanent collection of the Centro Velázquez is made up of 15 works that from now on will be accessible via an online catalogue that provides detailed information on the provenance, bibliography and exhibitions of the works, in addition to medium-resolution photographs.2
Artistic heritage of the Hospital de los Venerables.
- The headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, after it signed an agreement with the Archbishopric of Seville, is the Hospital de los Venerables, one of the most impressive complex of Sevillian Baroque art and a prime historical benchmark in Spain’s Golden Age, with works by artists like Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Juan de Valdés Leal and Pedro Roldán. The inventory contains more than 400 works of art which encompass a broad timespan of five centuries, from the 16th to the 20th.3