The Alhambra

It was in January 1492 when the Catholic Monarchs entered the Alhambra after their troops conquered Granada. The medieval city was quite deteriorated due to the years of fighting between members of the Nasrid royal family and also due to the years it was under siege until it was taken. With the desire to transform it into their Royal House, they allocated 713,181 maravedis to rebuild the damaged parts and adapt them to the new use. This amount reached 5,131,362 maravedis considering the architectural interventions of a military nature. The works began in the month of May. The kings settled in the part of the Comares Palace that until then was destined for the administration of the Kingdom of Granada, the Mexuar of the Alhambra. Much of the work was centered around the room where the Nasrid Government met under the presidency of the sultan. The room became the Royal Chapel, and a new floor with various galleries was built on top of it, access to which required the construction of a staircase that started from the patio of the Golden Room. Both the Golden Room and the rooms on the new floor constituted Queen Elizabeth's rooms. Both the staircase and the balcony overlooking the patio, which connected the room built above the Golden Room with those of the new floor located above the Royal Chapel, were demolished in 1865. With Philip V, the total abandonment of the Alhambra began. A royal site and military fortress, it gradually became a prison redoubt and residence for those who had no other place to live. At the end of the 18th century the Alhambra and the Generalife were abandoned and it was not until the return of absolutism by Ferdinand VII (r. 1808 and 1833) that the Alhambra once again became the object of royal attention.
In one way or another, the Alhambra has always been inhabited. This is the reason why, as Professor Emilio García Gómez says in the Prologue of his book «Poems on the walls and fountains of the Alhambra», “a monument made with four palitroques still remains standing.”

In this painting by Adolf Steel, titled The Alhambra, an image is shown in which the Patio of the Golden Room is recognized. This is deduced, fundamentally, from the Almohad capitals of the two columns of the portico, which are unique in the Nasrid monument. In the upper right corner it leaves a trace of the blown balcony that has been talked about in the previous paragraphs. The vertical facing with a pointed arch in the foreground was eliminated in the subsequent renovations of the patio. But the most striking thing is that Steel places a pool in the center of it because it never existed. Apparently, the painter wanted to synthesize in a single image two patios, that of Arrayanes, or the Alberca, and this one of the Golden Room.
However, the color of the water is Alhambra as this is its container.