Our course on the Golden Age of Spanish Art continued on Friday 17 October 2025 with Jennifer taking us through the complications of the Spanish and Portuguese Navigators and Explorers, and how the ties between the European houses came about and how that effected the propagation of Art throughout Europe in the second half of 16th Century.

Following the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, there was a large industry in converting the Moorish buildings and religious centres into Christian centres, and Jennifer produced examples from Seville, Cordoba and Granada to emphasise the change. Each building required new art, and so Spain became a European Magnet for Artists and Craftsmen.

Moving on from the unification of Castille and Aragon, Jennifer showed us how one family was able to concentrate the power of almost all of Europe, including England. Some thirty years before the Spanish Armada, England’s first female monarch, Mary Tudor, had a Spanish husband, Philip, who by gift of his father had been made King of Naples. This was Philip’s second marriage (his first wife Maria Manuela of Portugal having died after childbirth), but given that Mary had had a Spanish mother – Catherine of Aragon – Jennifer was certain they would have got on well together.

With all this power from so many European countries, with famous artists, concentrated in one family, there was a major art industry in painting the people of influence and circulating their portraits around the centres of Europe. We saw samples from Mor, Titian, Sofonisba and many more. With the marriage between Queen Mary and King Philip, many of the artists came to England too.

Jennifer finished her talk with a continuation of her travels in 2025 which this time concentrated on her visit to El Escorial near Madrid which contains many pictures of the Spanish monarchs over the centuries, as well as the tombs of all the Spanish Kings over the centuries.

Of interest to many of the members was the desk in a corner of the royal bedroom from which Philip had run his family’s Europe-wide empire. It looked so modest! There was also a visit to Nice, and a visit to a church in Kent where the stained glass had been designed by Marc Chagall.

Our next session will take place on Friday 07 November at 10:00am.