From 6 December 2024 to 2 March 2025, the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE showcases a 16th-century portable triptych altarpiece “The Holy Family with the Musician Angel, Saints Catherine and Barbara” from the PRADO Museum in Madrid. This outstanding work of late Renaissance art, whose panels were scattered around the globe for centuries, has only recently been reunited and restored to its original splendour and iconographic unity.
“In collaboration with the PRADO Museum and the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation, we are delighted to offer a chance to experience an extraordinary piece of art during Advent and Christmas,” said Daiga Upeniece, Director of the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE. “This exhibition is a deliberate effort to foster balance and inner peace amidst the anxiety and insecurity caused by ongoing aggression and war. As a counterpoint to the rush and stress of the season’s shopping frenzy, we invite visitors to embrace the concept of “slow art”, an approach gaining traction in art museums worldwide.”
“The altarpiece’s display in Riga is a significant cultural event, offering visitors the opportunity to appreciate the brilliance of Flemish art from the late Renaissance and Mannerist periods.” Ms. Upeniece added, “This exhibition not only brings us closer to a high-quality masterpiece but also unveils the countless stories and influences shaping European art history.” Alongside the exhibition, the museum will host a series of Advent-themed lectures and concerts.
The altarpiece “The Holy Family with the Musician Angel, Saints Catherine and Barbara” was created around 500 years ago in Antwerp (Belgium), then one of Europe’s most prosperous cities, where the significant circulation of money contributed to the rapid development of the art market. This piece was commissioned by the brothers of the Monastery of Santa Cruz la Real in Segovia (Spain), where it remained for three centuries before being dispersed during the Napoleonic Wars.
By the mid-19th century, two panels featuring St. Catherine and St. Barbara became part of the PRADO collection, while the central panel depicting the Holy Family was lost. It was only in 2008 that the museum acquired the missing central panel at a London auction, enabling the restoration of the tryptych’s original integrity after nearly two centuries. Remaining works of the triptych’s talented yet anonymous creator, known as the Workshop of the Master of Frankfurt (c. 1480–c. 1533), are housed in various museums worldwide, with most located in Frankfurt.
The PRADO museum, which celebrated its bicentennial in 2019, is one of Europe’s richest and most famous art institutions, originally founded on Spain’s royal collections. At the initiative of King Fernando VII, the PRADO was established initially as a national art museum but expanded to include significant works from other Western European schools, becoming a true cultural landmark.
This exhibition is made possible with the support of the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation, part of a €1 million investment in cultural initiatives to celebrate the Foundation’s upcoming 15th anniversary. The Foundation has a history of collaboration with the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE, including the acclaimed “Prado 12 Characters” exhibition in 2017, which became one of the museum’s most visited displays and earned the Latvian Museum Association’s Art Exhibition of the Year award in 2018. The Foundation also supported major exhibitions such as “Magnetism of Provence” (2015) and “Self-reflection: Omar Galliani, Lorenzo Puglisi, Tintoretto” (2021). This highly anticipated exhibition promises to be a cultural highlight, offering visitors a unique opportunity to connect with European art history through a single, extraordinary masterpiece.
