Spanish encounter

Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings from Spain opens well with a superb drawing by Zurbarán, ‘Head of a Monk’, and a Goya lithograph, ‘The Bulls of Bordeaux’. After that, turn left into the main print room and the disappointment starts. Have you ever wondered why we are not familiar with more Spanish artists than the few great names?

On the evidence of this exhibition the answer is clear. The lesser names are simply not very good, so it is a relief to find the Italian Federico Zuccaro, a working visitor to Spain, among the likes of Vicente Carducho and Miguel Barrosso. However important a historical survey, this show only intermittently comes alive. In a corner, there’s a Velázquez of two horses — one of the very few drawings by him in existence — and lots of oddities are scattered about, such as Francisco Rizi’s black chalk drawing of the dwarf Lusillo.