The BBVA Collection is lending. as a temporary deposit,  View of Madrid (Archaeological Museum from Calle Serrano) by Antonio López to the National Archaeological Museum. The oil on board painting will remain on view until 2029 on the second floor of the museum’s permanent exhibition, in Room 31, which connects the end of the Modern and Contemporary Age, concluding with the portrait of Queen Isabel II, and the beginning of the room dedicated to the history of the museum itself.

Made between 1961 and 1962, it depicts a panoramic view of the façade of the museum as seen from Calle Serrano. It was, in fact, as the painter himself explains, his first commissioned work. It was entrusted to him by Banco de Vizcaya to decorate one of its new branches in Madrid, located in Plaza de Felipe II. This was quite unusual at the time, as commissioned paintings were generally of a religious nature or portraits immortalizing important individuals; which is why these “portraits of Madrid”, as the artist calls them, were so innovative.

For the National Archaeological Museum, the work has an added historical and documentary value as it depicts the original entrance to the building, accessed by a staircase flanked by two sphinxes. The original entrance designed by the architect Ruiz de Salces was smaller in size. It remained unchanged until the late-1970s, when the central staircase was widened and the windows on either side of the main door were repurposed as new doors, as it appears today.