Prado

Prado (prä`dō, Span. prä`thō), national Spanish museum of painting and sculpture, Madrid, one of the finest in Europe. Situated on the Paseo del Prado, it was begun by Juan de Villanueva in 1785 for Charles III, as a museum of natural history, and finished under Ferdinand VII; the inaugural ceremony took place in 1819, when the collection consisted entirely of Spanish paintings. It was maintained by the royal family and called the Royal Museum until 1868, when it became national property. The Spanish, Flemish, and Venetian schools are particularly well represented. There are outstanding masterpieces of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens, Van Dyck, Dürer, Brueghel, and Hieronymus Bosch, and Velázquez, El Greco, Ribera, and Goya, nowhere else to be seen to such advantage. In 1894 contemporary paintings in the museum were transferred to the Patrimonio Nacional.

Bibliography

See H. B. Wehle, Great Paintings from the Prado Museum, with a foreword by F. J. Sánchez Cantón (1963); A. E. Sanches, The Prado (1987).

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Prado

an art gallery in Madrid housing an important collection of Spanish paintings

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Prado 

(National Museum of Paintings and Sculpture), an art museum in Madrid.

The Prado, which was built specifically to house a museum, is an outstanding example of late Spanish classicism (1785–1830). Designed by J. de Villanueva, the Prado opened in 1819. It initially housed the Spanish royal collections. The museum has an exceptional collection of Spanish painting from the 15th through the 19th centuries (El Greco, J. Ribera, F. Zurbarán, D. Velásquez, B. E. Murillo, F. Goya). There is also a rich collection of works by such important 16th century Italian masters as Raphael, A. del Sarto, and Titian. Also well represented are masterpieces of the Dutch school of the 15th and 16th centuries (Rogier van der Weyden, H. Bosch, A. Mor), the Flemish school (P. P. Rubens), and the French school (N. Poussin).

REFERENCES

[Malitskaia, K.] Muzei Prado: Madrid (album). Moscow, 1971.
Sánchez, A. P. El museo del Prado. Barcelona, 1971.