The present work was completed circa 1865, the year following Bauzà Mas’ entry into the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, where he had privileged access to the Museo del Prado. His practice of copying its masterpieces would have a profound effect on the artist’s development and oeuvre, and this arresting compilation of sketches proves Bauzà Mas’ skill as a young artist. This work pays homage to the generations of artists represented in the Prado’s collection, creating a chain of influence from one great master to the next.

Diego Velázquez is prominently featured in the present work with Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit, Portrait of Pablo de Valladolid, Portrait of the Infanta Margarita de Austria, Mars, Portrait of the Buffoon don Juan de Austria and Portrait of the Infante Don Carlos, a reflection of the Prado’s extraordinary and comprehensive collection. Like Velázquez, Bauzà Mas had the fortune of studying works by the Venetian masters, namely Titian, whose skill with depicting color and light, inspired by his surroundings in Venice, as well as his iconic portraits of the Spanish royal family, would directly influence subsequent generations of Spanish painters. Titian’s Danaë, of which there are numerous versions, is pictured in the upper center of this composition. Titian’s pupil, Tintoretto, is represented with Portrait of a Gentleman with a Gold Chain, considered to be one of the artist’s finest portraits, in the upper right corner. The Prado’s collection of seventeenth-century Flemish paintings are also represented here with The Holy Family by Sir Peter Paul Rubens and a number of portraits by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, including Portrait of a Man, Portrait of Count Hendrick van den Bergh, Portrait of a Man with a Chitarrone and Portrait of Endymion Porter and Anthony van Dyck.

1. Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Man with a Chitarrone
2. Sir Peter Paul Rubens, The Holy Family with Saint Anne
3. Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, Danaë Receiving the Golden Rain
4. Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Count Hendrick van den Bergh
5. Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto, Portrait of a Gentleman with a Gold Chain
6. Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Man
7. Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Endymion Porter and Anthony van Dyck
8. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Portrait of Juan Martínez Montañés
9. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Mercury and Argus
10. José de Ribera, Jacob's Dream
11. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit
12. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Portrait of Pablo de Valladolid
13. Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo (previously attributed to Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez), Portrait of the Infanta Margarita de Austria 
14. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Mars 
15. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez,  Portrait of the Buffoon don Juan de Austria
16. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Portrait of the Infante Don Carlos