Spanish gallery

He had several motivations: Beginning in 1810, French occupation and repression in Spain made it highly unstable.

In 1835, he founded an "artistic mission" directed by Baron Isidore Taylor, which was in charge of constituting quickly a vast collection of Spanish paintings.

The Spanish Gallery opened to the public on 1838/01/07, in five rooms on the first floor of the Louvre Cour Carrée's East (Colonnade) Wing.

One of the painting came back later to the Louvre in 1908: "Le Christ en croix adoré par deux donateurs" from El Greco, bought from the Prades town for 25000 francs.

Édouard Manet wrote to Charles Baudelaire, concerning Velazquez, in a letter from the 14 September 1865: "he is the greatest painter of all times.