Por Redaccion 
The Council of Government has taken note of the two temporary exhibitions scheduled for this spring at the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville and the Museum of Fine Arts in Granada on the works of the photographer Francisco Leygonier (1808-1883), one of the pioneers of photography in Seville, and the Baroque painter José Risueño (1665-1732), whose series dedicated to the Descalzos Mercenaries will be exhibited.
Both exhibitions represent the rescue of two episodes of Andalusian heritage. The first, Leygonier, one of the professional photographers pioneers of Andalusia, and the second, Risueño, one of the most representative figures of the Granada Baroque transition between the 17th and 18th centuries.
Curated by Juan Antonio Fernández Rivero and María Teresa García Ballesteros, the first of the exhibitions, ‘Francisco Leygonier, first of the Sevillian photographers’, brings together at the Fine Arts in Seville a total of 81 works by the Sevillian photographer in various formats: calotypes, albumins, lithographs, visiting cards, daguerreotypes, facsimiles, two photography albums, and even an oil painting.
The exhibition, which can be visited until June 8, 2025, is of enormous interest to learn about both the origins of photography and the Andalusia of the early contemporary era. Leygonier mainly photographed views and monuments of Seville, such as the Cathedral, the Giralda, the Alcazar, the Casa de Pilatos, and the Caridad. Also, in order to expand his offering and meet the demand of his clientele, he traveled to Córdoba and Granada to take images of their heritage, made portraits to include in popular visiting cards, took reproductions of paintings, and captured images of festivals and processions, such as Holy Week.
Among his clients, the Duke of Montpensier stood out, who, in addition to acquiring some of his views, commissioned numerous reports such as the hermitage of the Virgin of Valme, his booth at the Fair, or reproductions of the oil collection he cherished at the San Telmo Palace. This exhibition is largely made up of funds from the Fernández Rivero collection, as well as other originals from the Archive and the Municipal Photographic Archive of Seville, as well as from two other private collections: that of Carlos Sánchez, from Granada, and that of Narbona Algara, from Madrid.
On the other hand, the Museum of Fine Arts in Granada hosts until the beginning of May the exhibition ‘José Risueño and the Descalzos Mercenaries: the restoration of the pictorial cycle of the Convent of Belén’, which presents for the first time since the creation of the art gallery in 1839, the works of the pictorial cycle on the Descalzos Mercenaries by this important artist of late Granada Baroque, after being fully restored in the museum’s workshops.
It is a small-format exhibition, composed of nine works that are part of the foundational funds of the museum. All of them make up a pictorial cycle that was carried out by José Risueño y Alconchel (1665-1732) for the extinct Convent of Belén in Granada, of the order of Descalzos Mercedarios, between 1693 and 1712, to which one by Jacinto de Molina is added.
On one side, six horizontal paintings are exhibited representing scenes from the life of San Pedro Nolasco, with works that show the foundation of the order, redemptions of captives, or singular events of the founder of the Mercedarios. And on the other side, three vertical canvases are displayed, showing allegories related to the prosperity of the Mercedarian order through its main members and its most prominent benefactors.
Its exhibition to the public as a whole is unprecedented because, as a result of its state of conservation, many of the paintings that make it up had not been practically exhibited since the foundation of the art gallery in 1839. In these early years, the pictorial cycle was divided into two different rooms. When it moved and installed its headquarters in the Palace of Carlos V (1958), only a part of it was allocated to the permanent exhibition, and this was the case until the dismantling of 1995.
Although in the 19th century some of the paintings were restored, through the provision of new frames and re-lining, they were currently in poor condition despite being one of the series of greatest artistic and historical value in the entire collection. Between 2022 and 2023, the series was intervened in the workshops of the Museum of Fine Arts in Granada, allowing its recovery and enhancement, as well as restoring its remarkable aesthetic and plastic qualities.