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The long reign of Carlos III, from 1759 to 1788, was very favorable for the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, a didactic institution founded in 1752 by his half-brother Fernando VI. This academy was in line with the new taste introduced at the Madrid court by the Bourbon dynasty. Carlos III, who had previously sponsored the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum while being the king of Naples and the Two Sicilies, was an enlightened monarch and a patron aware of the latest artistic trends in Europe.

As the patron of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, he not only sought to increase its material endowment by providing the necessary pedagogical means for its proper functioning but also, in 1773, acquired the magnificent Baroque palace of Goyeneche for its headquarters. The academic architect Diego de Villanueva modernized the building, turning it into an exemplary model of neoclassical architecture.

In 1761, Carlos III brought the "philosopher painter," educator, archaeologist, theorist, and versatile artist Anton Raphael Mengs to Spain to serve as the Court Painter. Mengs decorated several ceilings of the Royal New Palace of Madrid and the Royal Site of Aranjuez. In 1763, after applying for entry into the Academy of San Fernando, Mengs was appointed its honorary director, playing a decisive role in the dissemination of artistic ideas.

However, Mengs clashed with the powerful elite of aristocratic councilors who governed the Academy due to his views on its functioning, management, and curriculum organization. Despite his attempts to modernize artistic education, Mengs could not impose his rules and overcome the strong resistance of the nobles, guardians of the power of a privileged class.

Nevertheless, Mengs' time at the Academy was beneficial not only for the influence he exerted on his students but also for the legacy of his private collection of sculptural plaster models. This collection, now restored and highlighted by the Academy's Delegate to the Museum, José María Luzón, and his museum-graphic team, and thoroughly studied by the researcher Almudena Negrete, constitutes one of the main plaster cast collections, if not the most important, in the Western world.

With the celebration of the exhibition "Anton Raphael Mengs and Antiquity," generously sponsored by the MAPFRE FOUNDATION—a new manifestation of the excellent results of the close collaboration between our respective entities—the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando not only aims to pay homage to the great artist and Neoclassical theorist but also to showcase to the cultured public a set of works that, from the mid-18th century to the end of that century, received applause from all lovers or admirers of classical aesthetics. The immaculate and white plasters, characterized by extreme purity, as well as other artistic expressions of classical art, not only served as models for the Academy's students but also stood as a sensitive paradigm of the sublimity of ideal beauty advocated by the art lovers who had revived Greco-Roman antiquity.