Prado Museum is presenting the first major monographic exhibition on portraits by Lorenzo Lotto, one of the most unique and fascinating artists of the Italian Cinquecento.

Co-organised with the National Gallery in London, it is benefitting from the sole sponsorship of Fundación BBVA and it is curated by Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo of the University of Verona, and Miguel Falomir, director of Prado Museum.

This exhibition features 38 paintings, 10 drawings, a print and around 15 sculptures and objects similar to those depicted in the portraits.

“Lorenzo Lotto. Retratos” also offers an unprecedented perspective on the artist’s works through the presence in the galleries of objects similar to those seen in the portraits, in a reflection of material culture of the day.

The exhibition focuses on already known aspects of Lotto’s portraiture such as their varied typology, psychological depth and complex symbolism. In addition, it explores other less familiar ones such as the artist’s use of similar resources in his portraits and religious works, the importance of the objects present in the portraits as reflections of material culture of those days, and the creative process behind the realisation of these works.

The variety of typologies that Lotto employed; the overt or concealed symbolism within them; the psychological depth with which he imbued his models; and the importance he gave to objects in order to define their status, interests and aspirations all give these portraits a degree of profundity which allow Lotto to be seen as the artist who best reflected Italy at the time, a country experiencing a profound period of change.

Lorenzo Lotto (Venice, 1480 – Loreto, ca. 1557) was one of the most unique and fascinating artists of the Italian Cinquecento. His reputation has consistently grown among scholars and art lovers since Bernard Berenson devoted the first monograph to him, "Lorenzo Lotto. An essay in constructive criticism", published in 1895. Writing at the time of the emergence of Freudian psychoanalysis, Berenson saw Lotto as the first portraitist to be interested in reflecting his sitters’ states of mind, and as such the first modern one. Although interest in the artist has been particularly notable since the 1980s, until now no exhibition has focused exclusively on the portraits, making this project a pioneering one.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Gallery Moshe Tabibnia has loaned an extraordinary example of a so-called "Lotto" carpet from the Zaleski collection.