Historic art book with Faculty link to feature in Madrid exhibition

William Stirling’s Annals of the Artists of Spain was published in 1848 and was the first art book to be illustrated with photographs. It features photographs of paintings, drawings, sculpture and prints by artists including El Greco, Velazquez, Murillo and Goya, and is credited with helping Spanish art to become widely known abroad.

Only 50 copies of the book were produced and Stirling personally donated one of the copies to the Advocates Library, which at the time was effectively Scotland’s national library. In 1925, the Faculty made a gift to the nation of 750,000 non-legal books, pamphlets, maps and sheet music to establish the National Library of Scotland.

Conservators at the National Library have carried out detailed repair work on the Library’s copy of the Stirling book, which will go on show at the Museo del Prado in Madrid in May as part of an exhibition which has assembled for the first time the material used by him for the preparation of the book.