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By 1852, when the museum opened, the Hermitage had formed
one of Europe's most significant collections of Spanish painting.
Individual works by Spanish painters had been acquired by Catherine
II as part of the celebrated Crozat and Walpole collections, in 1772
and 1779 respectively. The majority of Spanish artists were then unknown
outside their own country.In the first decades of the 19th century,
at the time of Napoleon's Spanish campaign, the Spanish revolution
and civil war, a flood of Spanish paintings poured out of the country's
palaces and churches onto the art market. Europe discovered the greatness
of the "Golden Age" of Spanish painting. The first gallery
of Spanish works outside the Iberian Peninsula was created in the
Hermitage under Alexander I. All facets of 17th-century Spanish painting
- the captivating realism of Velazquez's works, the drama of Ribera's
canvases, the austere simplicity of Zurbaran's paintings and the lyrical
images of Murillo - are presented in the New Hermitage in one of the
skylight rooms.
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