’..With its impressive archival research and uncluttered writing style, this book makes a significant contribution to scholarship in French and Spanish art history and museum studies. Highly recommended...’ Choice ’The most important aspect to this valuable corrective study is that for the first time, we learn about what the Spanish thought about it all. In a finely nuanced account, Luxenberg reveals how many in the Spanish artistic establishment were either ambivalent, or indeed multivalent towards the French. There are fascinating accounts of the equivocal roles played by Carderera, Madrazo and Villaamil, all of whom would become pillars of Isabelline Madrid.’ Journal of the History of Collections