Museo Nacional del Prado

The Prado building was built by Juan de Villanueva for Charles III as a natural history museum. Napoleon’s brother, Joseph, later decided it should house an art museum, and by the time the Prado opened in 1819, during the reign of Ferdinand VII, it already housed the royal collection of paintings. There is no doubt that the Prado is one of the best museums in the world. It exhibits more than 9000 works of art, among them creations by Velázquez, Goya, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Veronese, Fra Angelico, Bosch, Rubens, Dürer, Rembrandt and Bruegel.

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Highlights

The royal collection began with Queen Isabella back in the 16th century, then up until the 19th century her successors added to the collection. The Prado can display about 1,500 works of art at a time, mostly paintings. Try to see the collections of works by Goya and Velázquez. In recent years, the museum has undergone renovations, including an underground passage to the main building, and the Cason del Buen Retiro complex with its collection of 19th-century Spanish art has been rebuilt. Other museums nearby include the Queen Sofia Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Archaeological Museum, which houses collections of Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman art previously exhibited at the Prado.

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Tel: 91 3302800.Mon-Sat. 10.00-20.00; Sundays and holidays 10.00-19.00;closed Jan. 1, May 1 and Dec. 25.Entrance is paidMetro: Banco de España

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Spain’s most famous museum attracts many tourists to Madrid. This huge collection is more convenient to explore in small parts, such as works by certain artists or a specific historical period; therefore, we recommend visiting it at least twice. If you only have one day, find at least three hours of time. At the end of the week, the museum is usually crowded.

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Spanish Painting

Spanish art from the early Middle Ages is represented in the Prado mostly in sketches, but there are also a few full-color examples, such as frescoes by an anonymous author from the cloister of Santa Cruz de Maderuelo, which are characterized by Romanesque heaviness of line and the recreation of distinctive characters.

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Spanish Gothic is represented in the Prado by works by Bartolomé Bermejo and Fernando Gallego. The realism of their paintings can be explained by borrowing from Flemish painters of the time.

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Signs of the coming Renaissance appear in the works of artists such as Pedro de Berruguete, whose painting “Autodafe” evokes a strong emotional response. Fernando Yañez de la Almedina’s painting St. Caterina shows the style of Leonardo da Vinci, whom Yañez may have worked for while studying in Italy. The Spanish style, the main features of which are severity, gloominess and deep emotionality, began to emerge in the period of Mannerism XVI century. An example can serve as a picture of the “Deposition from the Cross” Pedro Machuca and Madonna Luis de Morales, nicknamed Divine. The deliberately elongated human figures in Morales’ paintings were borrowed by El Greco (Domenico Teotocopuli). Despite the fact that many of El Greco’s masterpieces are in Toledo, the Prado holds a solid collection of his works, including “Portrait of an Aristocrat.”

The Golden Age was a time of unprecedented flourishing for Spanish art. José de Ribera, who lived in Spanish Naples was a follower of Caravaggio, utilizing the realistic nature of painting and the technique of light shading. Another master who used the same method was Francisco Ribalta, whose painting Christ and St. Bernard is also in the Prado. The museum also has a number of works by Surbaran – still lifes, depictions of saints and monks.

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This period is splendidly represented by paintings by Diego de Velázquez, who became court painter when he was not yet thirty years old, and remained in that position until his death. He painted ceremonial portraits of members of the royal family, paintings on religious and mythological subjects. Many of his paintings are in the Prado. Perhaps the most significant of his works is “Meninas” (“Maid of Honor”).

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Another great Spanish painter, Goya, who worked in the 18th century, drew sketches for tapestries early in his career and later became a court painter. Some of Goya’s most interesting paintings in the Prado include The Shooting of the Rebels on the Night of May 3, 1808, which condemns war and violence, and the famous “Gloomy Paintings” series.

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Flemish and Dutch painting

Many magnificent paintings by Flemish and Dutch painters are in the Prado. Examples include St. Barbara by Robert Kampen, which is imbued with a sense of intimacy, and Rogier van der Weyden’s Deposition from the Cross, which is undoubtedly a masterpiece. The most famous are the impressive, mystical canvases by Hieronymus Bosch, among them the Temptation of St. Anthony and the triptych The Woz Hay. Among the most interesting works of the XVI century. “Triumph of Death” by Bruegel the Elder. The museum owns almost a hundred canvases by the Flemish painter of the XVII century Pieter Paul Rubens, including the painting “Adoration of the Magi”. One of the most famous paintings on display at Prada is Rembrandt’s Artemisia, painted from the artist’s wife. Of the other Flemish and Dutch artists whose works are on display at the Prado, we should mention Antonis Mora, Antonis Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens, considered among the best portrait painters of the 17th century.

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Italian Painting

The Prado Museum surpasses many museums and can justifiably boast an extensive collection of Italian paintings. Botticelli’s magnificent decorative wooden profiles, united by the title The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, the story of a knight forever condemned to pursue and kill his beloved, were commissioned to the painter by two wealthy Florentine families.

Fashionable here are Raphael’s paintings of “Christ on the Road to Calvary” and “The Holy Family with the Lamb” and Tintoretto’s early painting “Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet”. Spanish painters were heavily influenced by Caravaggio and used his characteristic handling of light and shadow, as in David with the Head of Goliath. The Prado also prominently features works by Venetian painters Veronese and Titian. Titian was a court painter at the court of Carlos V, and his paintings express the most dramatic moments of the Habsburg era, exemplified by the somber and solemn “Emperor Charles V at Mühlberg.” The museum also displays works by Giordano and Tiepolo, a recognized master of the Italian Rococo, who painted The Immaculate Conception, which is part of a series intended for the church in Aranjuez.

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French painting

The Prado Museum has eight paintings attributed to Poussin, including his serene “St. Cecilia” and “Landscape with St. Jerome.”

The Prado Museum has eight paintings attributed to Poussin.

The best of Claude Lorrain’s works on display at the Prado is “The Departure of St. Paula for Ostia.” Among the eighteenth-century artists whose work is represented here are Antoine Watteau and Jean Ranck. Of interest is the portrait of “Philip V” by the royal portrait painter Louis-Michel Van Loo.

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German Painting

The Prado Museum holds several paintings by Albrecht Dürer, including Adam and Eve, which has become a classic. His expressive “Self-Portrait” of 1498, painted by him at the age of 26, is the jewel of the Prado’s small but highly valuable collection of German paintings. There are also several paintings by Lucas Cranach and canvases by late 18th-century painter Anton Raphael Mengs, among them a portrait of Carlos III.

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