England has ever followed the progress of Spanish art with enthusiasm and interest. During the nineteenth century, the majority of the works of art which left Spain found a resting place in England. In London within recent years three exhibitions of Spanish painting ante-dated that of 1920--one in the New Gallery (1891), another in the Guildhall (1901), and the last in the Grafton Gallery (1913). All of them were rich in results, more especially the third, which was remarkable for its modern section. The difference in character between the exhibition of 1913 and that of the Royal Academy in 1920 consists more especially in the display of works belonging to English collections, the latter being composed for the most part of examples sent from Spain as an act of homage to the English people, and to assure them once more of the existence of a spiritual bond or tie between the two countries, which with the passage of time aspire to a more intimate relationship. It was at first the intention of the organisers of the exhibition of 1920 not to send as representative of the older art any except the works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a few pictures by Goya, as examples of the golden age of Spanish painting, and especially in view of the exceptional interest in Goya. But it was ultimately decided to furnish an exhibit completely representative of all epochs. At the same time the Spanish Committee recognised that the section devoted to Primitive Art--in which among the many artists represented the most remarkable was Ribera--was lacking in distinction. This it regretted and felt a pleasure in its ability to compensate for the omission by providing a full representation of the greater Spanish painters, and in being able to lend ten Grecos and twenty-one Goyas, preserved in Spain, to Burlington House, a thing until now impossible of accomplishment and which it will not be easy to repeat.