Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando

The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, inaugurated in 1752 by Ferdinand VI, is the artistic institution with the longest cultural history in Spain. The proposal to found a Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Spain was made by the painter Antonio Meléndez, who, in 1726, proposed to Philip V the establishment of an Academy of Arts for design, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The Museum of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, very close to Sol, currently houses more than 1,400 paintings, 1,300 sculptures, and 15,000 drawings, in addition to an excellent collection of decorative arts consisting of tapestries, silverware, ceramics, porcelain, clocks, furniture, and medals. It also has a Permanent Photography Gallery displaying a small selection of the nearly 3,000 photographs that currently comprise the Academy's photographic collection. Among the photographers featured in this space are great masters of Spanish photography, such as Charles Clifford, Ramón Masats, Paco Gómez, Gabriel Cualladó, Castro Prieto, García Alix, Isabel Muñoz, Ouka Leele, Manuel Outumuro, Chema Madoz, and Carlos Pérez Siquier. The Academy's permanent collection contains masterpieces of Spanish, Italian, and Flemish art. Of Francisco de Goya, who was a member from 1780, the museum holds 13 paintings, including two self-portraits (notably Self-Portrait at the Easel, the only one by the artist that shows him working in his studio), The Bullfight, portraits of Moratín, Juan de Villanueva, the actress La Tirana, and the Carnival scene known as The Burial of the Sardine. Since June 2022, following renovations to the Museum made possible by a donation from the Callia Foundation through the Latin American Patronage Awards, his works can be seen in the two main rooms on the first floor, thus doubling the space dedicated to Goya. The Academy houses the Museum, the Archive-Library, the Plastering Workshop, and the National Chalcography Workshop, which brings together an extraordinary collection of plates engraved by the most significant Spanish artists, including the copper plates etched by Francisco de Goya, masterpieces in the universal history of printmaking.