The Prado in Spain

The Prado

Located in the center of Madrid, The Prado was originally built by Juan de Villanueva for Charles III, as a natural history museum. Later, Napoleon's brother Joseph decided it should be an art museum, and by the time it opened in 1819, under Fernando VII, it housed the royal art collection. There is no doubt that the Prado is one of the world's finest museums, holding more than 9,000 works of art by, among others Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Veronese, Fra Angelico, Bosch, Rubens, Dilrer, Rembrandt and the Brueghels.

Queen Isabella began the royal collection in the sixteenth century, and this was added to by her successors until the nineteenth century. The Prado displays some 1,500 works of art, mainly paintings, at any one time. Some of these are on permanent display and the rest are shown on a rotation system. Try to see both the Goya and the Velazquez collections. The museum has had some major renovations in the last few years, the most recent being an underground link joining the main building to the Jerónimos building and the refurbishment of the Cason del Buen Retiro, with its collection of nineteenth-century Spanish art. Nearby are the Museo Reina Sofia, which has twentieth-century art, the Palacio de Villahermosa, which houses the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Museo Arqueológico, which has the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman collections that used to be in the Prado.

The Prado is closed on Mondays. Remember to visit Fra Angelico's Annunciation, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, Rubens' The Three Graces, Velazquez's Las Meninas.