Prado Museum
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The Museo del Prado, officially Museo Nacional del Prado, is one of the most outstanding in the world, and is also among the most visited (the eighteenth in 2013 among those dedicated to art). Based in Madrid, Spain, it is also considered the most important cultural institution in the country, according to the 2022 Observatory of Culture, a study carried out among several hundred professionals in the sector.
Singularly rich in paintings by Spanish masters and various pictorial schools from the rest of Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries, and Spaniards from the 19th, according to the art historian and Hispanist Jonathan Brown "few would dare to doubt that it is the most important museum in the world for European painting". It has the best and most extensive collections that exist worldwide, to which must be added outstanding groups of authors as important as Murillo, Ribera, Zurbarán, Paret, Fra Angelico, Rafael, Veronese, Tintoretto, Dürer, Patinir, Antonio Moro, Van Dyck or Poussin, to name just a few of the most relevant.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, former director of the institution, affirmed that "it represents in the eyes of the world the most significant part of our culture and the most brilliant and lasting part of our history".
As of February 2017, the inventory of artistic assets included more than 35,000 objects, broken down into 8,045 paintings, 9,561 drawings, 5,973 prints and 34 stamping dies, 971 sculptures (in addition to 154 fragments), 1,189 pieces of art decorations, 38 weapons and armor, 2,155 medals and coins, over 15,000 photographs, 4 books and 155 maps.
Due to endemic space limitations, the museum exhibited a selection of works of the highest quality (around 900), for which it was defined as "the highest concentration of masterpieces per square meter." With the expansion by Rafael Moneo, inaugurated in 2007, it was expected that the selection on display would grow by 50%, with some 450 more works. In addition, in 2018 the rooms in the north attic were reopened, after which the total number of pieces on display It is around 1,700, and when the Salón de Reinos building is rehabilitated, between 250 and 300 more paintings will be hung in it.
Like other great European museums, such as the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence, the Prado owes its origins to the collecting hobby of the ruling dynasties over several centuries. It reflects the personal tastes of the Spanish kings and their network of alliances and their political enmities, making it an asymmetrical collection; some artists and styles have an insurmountable repertoire, and on the contrary, others are not or hardly represented. Only since the XX century has an attempt been made, with uneven results, to solve some absences.
The Prado is not an encyclopedic museum in the style of the Louvre, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan, the National Gallery in London, or even (on a much smaller scale) the neighboring Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which have works by virtually all schools and eras. On the contrary, it is an intense and distinguished collection, made up essentially of a few art-loving kings, where many works were created to order. The collection from the Royal Collection has been complemented by subsequent contributions, which have hardly changed its initial profile, since, unlike what is usual in national art galleries in other countries, the efforts, rather than completing the gaps, have been aimed at reinforcing the essential core.
Many experts consider it a collection "of painters admired by painters", an inexhaustible lesson for new generations of artists, from Manet, Mary Cassatt, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas, who visited the museum in the XIX, to Picasso, Matisse, Dalí, Edward Hopper, Francis Bacon, David Hockney and Antonio Saura, who said: «This museum is not the the most extensive, but the most intense".
The pictorial schools of Spain, Flanders and Italy (especially Venice) hold the leading role in the Prado, followed by the French collection, more limited although with good examples of Georges de La Tour, Nicolas Poussin and Claudio de Lorraine. German painting has a discontinuous repertoire, with four Dürer masterpieces and multiple Mengs portraits as its main treasures. Along with the brief repertoire of British painting, circumscribed almost to the genre of portraiture, we must mention Dutch painting, a section that is not too broad but that includes Rembrandt.
Although these are lesser-known aspects, the museum also has an important section of decorative arts (which includes the Treasure of the Dolphin) and a collection of sculptures, in which the Greco-Roman sculptures stand out.
Together with the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo Nacional del Prado forms the so-called Triangle of Art, a mecca for many tourists from all over the world. This area is enriched by other nearby institutions: the National Archaeological Museum, the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts and other small museums.
The Prado is governed by a director (currently Miguel Falomir, in office since 2017), assisted by the Royal Board of Trustees of the Museum. Its operation is governed by Law 46/2003, of November 25, regulating the Museo Nacional del Prado.
History
The building that houses the Prado Museum was initially conceived by José Moñino y Redondo, Count of Floridablanca and first Secretary of State to King Carlos III, as the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, within the framework of a series of institutions of character (thought according to the new mentality of the Enlightenment) for the redevelopment of the promenade called Salón del Prado. To this end, Carlos III relied on one of his favorite architects, Juan de Villanueva, also the author of the neighboring Royal Botanical Garden and the Royal Astronomical Observatory, with which he formed a complex known as the Hill of Sciences .
The architectural project of the current art gallery was approved by Carlos III in 1786. It marked the culmination of Villanueva's career and one of the peaks of Spanish Neoclassicism, although given the long duration of the works and subsequent vicissitudes, the final result it departed somewhat from the initial design.
The construction works were carried out during the reigns of Carlos III and Carlos IV, leaving the building practically finished at the beginning of the XIX century. But the arrival of the French troops in Spain and the War of Independence left their mark on him; it was used for military purposes (cavalry barracks) and practically fell into a state of ruin; the lead sheets of the roofs were melted down for the manufacture of bullets.
Thanks only to the interest shown by Fernando VII and, above all, by his second wife, Isabel de Braganza, the recovery of the building began in 1818, based on new designs by Villanueva himself, replaced by his death by his disciple Antonio López Aguado, with funds contributed by the king from his "personal bag" or "secret pocket".
On November 19, 1819, the Royal Museum of Paintings, the initial name of the institution, was inaugurated discreetly. Thus culminated a project already outlined in the times of Carlos IV: the foundation of a museum in the image of the Louvre in Paris, which would exhibit the most selected pieces from the Royal Collection. At that time, it had three hundred and eleven paintings, exhibited in three rooms, all of them by painters of the Spanish school, although it stored many more. In successive years, new rooms were added, as the building completion work was carried out, and works of art.
Initially the museum was one more dependency of the Crown's patrimony. For this reason, many shipments were received from royal palaces and monasteries, but there were also some works that were later shipped to new locations. This is the case of San Fernando before the Virgin, by Luca Giordano, which in 1828 was transferred to the El Pardo Palace.
Precisely the connection of the collection to the Crown posed a serious problem at the death of Fernando VII, due to his testamentary division between Isabel II and her sister, María Luisa Fernanda. The execution of said will was postponed until Elizabeth's majority. In doubt as to whether all the assets included in the inventories could be considered the free inheritance of the king, a commission was appointed, which in 1844 issued a report in which, although it recognized that testamentary dispositions throughout the history of The Spanish monarchs were too imprecise and variable to allow a tradition to be established, he expressed his opposition in any case to a division, since they were assets that for the most part belonged to the Spanish Crown from very remote times. Therefore, he proposed as a solution:
...Make V.M. of your property, through an equitable legally agreed compensation, all the furniture and effects of all kinds awarded to your Augusta Hermana, which is not applicable to your particular use, are intended for the service and decoration of the V.M Palaces.
Report that was approved by the queen, in agreement with her mother and sister.
After the dethronement of Elizabeth II in 1868, the museum became part of the "property of the Nation" through the Law of December 18, 1869, which abolished the patrimony of the Crown. This law, however, established a set of assets for the use and service of the monarch, but did not include the museum among them.
In 1872, the Museo de la Trinidad, created from works of art confiscated by virtue of the Mendizábal Confiscation Law (1836), was suppressed and its collections were transferred to the Prado. After this merger, the Prado was renamed the National Museum of Painting and Sculpture, a designation that until then had been the Museum of the Trinity. This name was maintained until the Royal Decree of May 14, 1920, officially received the current name of Museo Nacional del Prado, which was how it was commonly known before, because the building was built on land of the old Prado de los Jerónimos..
In the following decades, other collections were added to the Prado, among which the Museum of Modern Art stands out in 1971 —except for its section of the century XX, which would later become the initial base of the Museo Reina Sofía—. Other collections that swelled that of the Prado were the paintings of the Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar, which had been transferred to the Museum of Modern Art after its dissolution in 1908, and part of the collection of the Iconographic Museum, an ephemeral museum provisionally installed in 1879 in the same building of the Museo del Prado and that a decade later was suppressed, distributing its funds among several museums, including the Prado, libraries and headquarters of official organizations. The entry of the collections of other museums forced the institution to increase its policy of dissemination of funds, through the creation of stable deposits of works of art in other public and private institutions, in Spain and also in some cases abroad (embassies and consulates).
During the 19th century and much of the XX the Prado experienced a somewhat precarious situation, as the State allocated insufficient support and resources to it. The deficient security measures, with a part of the museum staff residing in it and piles of firewood stored for the stoves, caused the alarm of some experts. The article by Mariano de Cavia published in 1891 on the cover of El Liberal, which recounted a fire that had devastated the Prado, was very popular. Only at the end of the article was it revealed that the event was fictitious; so that many people from Madrid approached the place alarmed. The false news served as a knock for the adoption of some urgent improvements.
But in 1918 real damage was discovered, the looting of the Dolphin Treasure, carried out by an employee of the museum itself, Rafael Coba. Most of the pieces could be recovered, except for eleven, but thirty-five of them with Very severe damage, stripped of many of its precious stone and metal fittings. The event, the most serious in the history of the institution, cost its director, the painter José Villegas Cordero, his job and led to the precautionary closure of the studios that the artists had in the art gallery. It was the worst robbery the museum has suffered, but in 1897 it also suffered the theft of a sketch by Murillo, Santa Ana teaching the Virgin to read, and in 1961 another thief tried to enter the building by the roof, although he fell into the void and died. He had a paper prepared in his pocket in which he dictated the conditions for the recovery of the paintings.
A large part of the Prado's masterpieces were evacuated during the Civil War, fearing that the bombings by the Francoist side would destroy the building and its contents. Fifty-four works from the MAM were also transferred, in addition to others from the monastery of El Escorial and some from private individuals, such as The Countess of Chinchón, by Goya, then owned by the Dukes of Sueca, or The Countess of Santovenia, by Eduardo Rosales, belonging at that time to the Duke of the Tower, who had it deposited in the MAM. They underwent a long journey through various places in eastern Spain (Valencia, Catalonia) until they arrived by train in Geneva, where they staged an exhibition that generated international interest and attracted 400,000 visits, a formidable number for the time. Artists of the time as Paul Klee and Alberto Giacometti came to see it. After its closure, the works were returned to the Madrid museum after almost three years of absence.
Despite several minor expansions, the Prado suffered from space limitations, more serious from the 1960s, when the tourist boom skyrocketed the number of visitors. Little by little, the art gallery adapted to the new technical requirements; the air filtering and control system was installed in the 1980s, coinciding with the restoration of many Velázquez paintings. The roof, built with disparate materials and through successive patches, suffered occasional leaks, until in 1995 a restricted competition was called for its comprehensive remodeling, won by the architects Dionisio Hernández Gil and Rafael Olalquiaga, carrying out the works between 1996 and 2001.
In 1995, a parliamentary agreement signed by the two main parties in Parliament, the PP and the PSOE, protected the museum from political fluctuations and provided the necessary calm for a modernization process, which included legal changes as well as the extension. This, after a controversial contest of ideas, was awarded to the architect Rafael Moneo, already well known in these fights for his work in the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, among others. The extension was inaugurated in October 2007, after five years of works.
Directors
The direction of the Museo del Prado, from its foundation to the present moment, takes place in three main stages:
- Great of Spain: the Marquis of Santa Cruz, the prince of Anglona, the Marquis of Ariza and the Duke of Híjar, who took administrative work aided for artistic issues by painters such as Luis Eusebi and Vicente López, the first camera painter of Fernando VII.
- Court painters, academics and other renowned artists (it was necessary to have obtained first medals in national or foreign exhibitions): José Madrazo, Juan Antonio de Ribera, Federico de Madrazo, Antonio Gisbert, Francisco Sans Cabot, Vicente Palmaroli, Francisco Pradilla, Luis Álvarez Catalá, José Villegas, Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor (two periods), and, nominally, Pablo Ruiz Picasso.
- Historiadores del arte y otros: Aureliano de Beruete y Moret, Ramón Pérez de Ayala (writer and journalist), Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, Diego Angulo, Xavier de Salas, José Manuel Pita Andrade, Federico Sopeña (musicologist), Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Felipe Garín Llombart, Francisco Calvo Serraller, José María Luzón (archologist), Fernando Czech, Miguel Zugaza and Miguel Falo.
“Museum for painters”
Since its beginnings at the beginning of the XIX century, the Museo del Prado has made a decisive contribution to the study and dissemination of Spanish painting, also becoming a "museum for painters", a place of learning and inspiration for new generations of artists. Eduardo Rosales, Mariano Fortuny, Federico de Madrazo and Francisco Pradilla, among many others, shaped their own style under the influence of the works of Velázquez and Goya del Prado, as would Ignacio Zuloaga and Joaquín Sorolla. In later decades, two young creators who would achieve universal fame came to the museum: Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Many of the most innovative French artists of realism and impressionism also attended the Madrid gallery, such as Gustave Courbet, Léon Bonnat, Carolus-Duran, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Auguste Rodin and Claude Monet; being the great supporter of the museum in those years Édouard Manet, whose glowing praise for Velázquez had to encourage many of his colleagues to undertake a trip to Madrid. Among those who did so are the Americans Mary Cassatt, Sargent and Chase; the last two came to paint works under the direct influence of the Sevillian master.
In the XX century, the magistery of the Prado's treasures has attracted countless creators to the museum; Spaniards such as Gutiérrez Solana, Vázquez Díaz, Antonio Saura, Equipo Crónica, Ramón Gaya, Antonio López, Fernando Zóbel, Guillermo Pérez Villalta, Ouka Leele, Miquel Barceló and Eduardo Arroyo (who published a peculiar guide to the Prado in 2011, At the foot of the canyon ) and also foreigners, such as Edward Hopper, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Wolf Vostell, Cy Twombly and Cai Guo-Qiang.
Illustrious Visitors
Converted into a "place of memory" and the friendliest and most prestigious face of Spain before the international community, the Prado Museum is a meeting point for many authorities and other prominent personalities who pass through Madrid. Since diplomatic visits and tourism became general in the middle of the XX century, the Prado has been included recurrently in the agendas protocols of government presidents, monarchs and other foreign authorities. Mention may be made of the visits made to the museum by Charles de Gaulle, Eva Perón (1947), Hussein of Jordan, Américo Tomás, Elizabeth II of England, Diana of Wales, Beatriz of the Netherlands, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, Sandro Pertini, Helmut Schmidt, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, Kofi Annan, Albert II of Monaco and the leaders of 36 countries attending the 2022 Madrid NATO summit; among them, Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Mario Draghi.
There are also numerous figures from literature, music, cinema and entertainment that have visited the Prado, especially since Spain began to host the filming of Hollywood films. Among many names, Hans Christian Andersen, Giuseppe Verdi, Ava Gardner, Orson Welles, Anthony Mann, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Anthony Quinn, María Félix, Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese stand out., Woody Allen and Milos Forman. Other celebrities who have visited the Prado are Paul McCartney, Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones drummer), the leader of The Doors group Jim Morrison (1971), Madonna, Michael Jackson and the other members of The Jacksons (1978), Manolo Blahnik, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Sigourney Weaver, Kim Basinger, Sharon Stone, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Jackman, Rob Morrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst and Glenn Close.
In 1960, actor Vincent Price served as the narrator in a voice recording describing 32 works of art from the Prado. This recording was released on vinyl, and is currently available on YouTube. In 1961, Rita Hayworth and Rex Harrison filmed scenes from the comedy The Last Blackmail (The Happy Thieves), a film that narrated an attempted robbery of The Executions of May 3rd by Goya. There are multiple Spanish and foreign films related, to a greater or lesser extent, with the Prado.
Origin of collections
The museum's painting collection exceeds 8,600 works. Of these, just over 3,000 come from the Royal Collection, just over 2,000 from the Museo de la Trinidad and the rest, more than 3,500, from the fund called New Acquisitions, which also includes those made by the Museo de la Trinidad and the paintings he received in 1971 from the Museum of Modern Art.
The Royal Collection
The original core of the Museo del Prado collections comes from the Spanish monarchy. The kings of Spain were art collectors for centuries, and distributed their acquisitions and commissions to the numerous residences they accumulated throughout the Iberian Peninsula: the Alcázar in Madrid, the El Pardo Palace, the Torre de la Parada, the Buen Retiro, La Granja de San Ildefonso, Aranjuez, Palacio de la Zarzuela, as well as the monasteries of Yuste and El Escorial.
- Background: The Royal Collection of Paintings as it is known today was founded in Philip II times. The previous Catholic Kings and monarchs already commissioned and collected paintings, but their collections used to undo when they failed. They were goods linked to the person and not to the institution to which he represented, and therefore when he died they were divided among his heirs. From the collection of Isabella the Catholic subsists the small part he donated to the Royal Chapel of Granada; it includes The Prayer of the GardenA rare painting by Sandro Botticelli.
- The Habsburgs: Carlos I mainly commissioned portraits and religious works for a practical purpose, without the encouragement of collecting. It should be noted that he had at his service Tiziano, whom he granted the exclusivity of portraying him, similar to what Alejandro Magno did with Apeles. It was his son Philip II who began to value the Royal Collection as a treasure to preserve, and he attached it to the Crown as an indivisible heritage. He gathered numerous paintings bought by his father, and others from the collection of his aunt, Mary of Hungary. He added important works to the royal collections, such as the significant paintings of El Bosco. Felipe III did not have internationally renowned artists serving as his father and grandfather, but his son Felipe IV granted to the Spanish Crown collection a superior category among the European royal collections. Apart from those sent to the monastery of El Escorial, he added more than 2000 new paintings to his palaces: about 1100 for the Alcazar, about 800 for the Buen Retiro, built under his reign, 171 for the Torre de la Parada, deeply renovated during those years, and 96 for the Zarzuela, also of new construction. Philip IV also served Velázquez for forty years. Carlos II, despite living in one of the most critical times in Spain's history, achieved what none of his predecessors had achieved: putting the most renowned artist in Europe at the service of Spain, Luca Giordano (in Spain also called Lucas Jordan), whom he called from Naples to commission him numerous royal works, portraits and decorations. He also claimed that he was considered the best Neapolitan Neagonist in the century.XVII, Giuseppe Recco, but died shortly after disembarking in the port of Alicante. In addition to this, the king observed the unity of the collection, thanks to the fact that his father had linked to the Crown "paintings, law firms, porphyte vessels [...] without being able to alienate or separate in the whole or in the small and minimal part". So, he stopped her. Worship of the MagiRubens, and The dispute with the doctors in the Temple, of Veronese, were sent by his second wife, Mariana of Neoburg, to Germany as a gift for his brother Juan Guillermo, although he did give permission instead in 1694 to send him another canvas of flamenco, the Reconciliation of Esau and JacobToday at the Staatsgalerie of the Schleißheim Palace.
- The Bourbons: During the reign of the first member of the new dynasty, Felipe V, there was the fire of the Alcazar of Madrid (1734), in which five hundred thirty-seven paintings were lost. On its site the present Palace of the East was built, and for its decoration and the Palace of the Farm, also built during the government of the first Bourbon, the king and his second wife, Isabel de Farnesio, acquired a considerable amount of paintings, with excellent examples of the art of Poussin and Murillo. Prior to the fire, a fundamental work of Velázquez had also been incorporated into the collection: The hilanders, or the fable of Aracne, and in 1722 124 paintings were purchased from the Carlo Maratta collection, among which there were important examples of Seicento Italian, until then poorly represented. The classic sculpture collection was also created, until then represented in the Royal Collection only by emptied. The fundamental milestone was the purchase in 1724 of the collection of Cristina de Sweden, for the decoration of La Granja. Four years later it was complemented by the acquisition of Catherine of Haro and Guzman, duchess consort of Alba and daughter and universal heir of the VII Marquis of Carpio, of the one hundred and ninety-seven sculptural pieces he possessed of the collection that his father had formed in Rome (the group gathered by the Marquis was wider, but part of it had dispersed with the almond that his daughter had celebrated in 1689). The works, which were also intended for La Granja and which entered entirely in the collection of Felipe V, included twenty-seven sculptures of whole body, sixty-three heads and busts and nineteen bas-reliefs, in addition to eighty-eight pieces: twenty-four chimney ornaments, porphydo vases, columns, pedestals, doses, shells and fountain seats. On the other hand, Philip, after his father's death in 1711, El Gran Delfín, received in heritage the collection of decorative arts known as the Dolphin Treasure. Carlos III bought pieces as extraordinary as Judit at the Holofernes banquet Rembrandt, who acquired in 1768 the Marquis of the Ensenada at the request of Mengs, the only work he owns the Prado, and it was he who ordered to build the building that occupies the museum. His son Carlos IV, a monarch of great artistic sensitivity, is remembered as patrons of Goya. He also acquired the Portrait of Cardinal from Rafael. Although there is no documentary certainty, it is quite likely that it belonged to a group of paintings, extracted by the French of the Vatican in 1797 after the Treaty of Tolentino, which the king bought in 1803. The collection of neoclassical painting of the museum, with works by José de Madrazo, Juan Antonio Ribera and José Aparicio, as well as the sculptor José Álvarez Cubero, is also due to this king.
- The Napoleonic Invasion was a terrible disaster for the Spanish historical-artistic heritage, from which the Royal Collection was not released. In his escape, José Bonaparte (who had previously expoliated the jewels of the Spanish Crown) took a large set of paintings, more than two hundred, of small and medium format, easily transportable, chosen among the most quality of the Collection. This shipment was intercepted by the troops of the Duke of Wellington following the Battle of Vitoria. The Duke informed the king, requesting instructions to return the works, but he replied that he gave them away. Perplexed by the answer, Wellington wrote to him again, thanking him for his generosity but telling him that it was a gift he could not accept, since they were very numerous pieces of great value that were owned by the Spanish Crown, and asking him again to indicate the details to return them. However Fernando VII persisted in his absurd posture, with what said set (which included such extraordinary paintings as El aguador de SevillaVelázquez, or Prayer in the garden, from Correggio) ended in the hands of the Duke, an episode known ironically by the British as The Spanish Gift (The Spanish Gift), currently retaining part of them in Apsley House, London (other are in the family residence of Stratfield Saye House). Also Colonel James Hay approved on his own. The Arnolfini MarriageJan van Eyck, where Velázquez was inspired to paint The Meninascurrently at the National Gallery in London. To this we must add the paintings given by José Bonaparte to the French generals, as an excellent work by Sebastiano del Piombo, Crying for the dead Christwho handed over to Marshal Soult today at the Hermitage, or the famous Philip IV of chestnut and silver (Velázquez, National Gallery), who gave up General Dessolles.
- The main architects of the Royal Collection
Carlos I (1500-1558)
by Tiziano
He started the collection and had predilection by Tiziano.
Philip II (1527-1598)
by Sofonisba Anguissola
He continued with Tiziano and cemented the flamenco painting collection of the sixteenth century, especially El Bosco and Moro.
Philip IV (1605-1665)
by Velázquez
He enriched more than any other collection, especially with Velázquez, Rubens and Italian painting.
Felipe V (1683-1746) and Isabel de Farnesio (1692-1766)
by Louis-Michel van Loo
They jointly acquired almost half of the paintings of the Maratta collection and the sculptures of Cristina of Sweden. The king also incorporated The Dutch and Dolphin TreasureAnd the queen formed the collection of Murillo.
The Museum of the Trinity
In the formation of the Museo del Prado's collections, the former Museo de la Trinidad represents the second great nucleus, although the extension, variety and quality of its holdings were much smaller than those of the Royal Collection. This museum, which was called National, was created as a consequence of the Mendizábal Confiscation Laws (1835-36), whose magnitude and extension created in many people a logical concern for the works of art preserved in the churches, monasteries and convents suppressed and converted into National Assets. In response to this concern, it was decided to gather in the old convent of Trinidad Calzada (from which the museum took its name), located on Calle Atocha in Madrid and founded by Felipe II, the works of art kept by these religious institutes.
To this were added the collections owned by the Infante Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón, seized in retaliation for his joining the Carlist side, although they were later returned to him, in 1859, and were never incorporated into the Prado (although some ended up entering years later in the museum through acquisition, such as the Still Life of Game, Vegetables and Fruits, by Sánchez Cotán, purchased in 1991). In addition, numerous acquisitions of works of contemporary art made by the State were added to the exhibitions organized first by the San Fernando Academy and then by the contests known as the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, which began in 1856. With these large funds, the museum It was inaugurated in 1838, although in rather precarious conditions, a situation that will remain throughout the short life of this museum. The vast majority of the works came from the province of Madrid itself and the rest from some nearby provinces, such as Ávila, Toledo, Segovia, Burgos and Valladolid, and they were mainly large altar paintings or small devotional works, including also some religious carvings. Almost all the authors were Spanish, which is why it was intended to articulate the collection around the creation of the so-called «Spanish School of Painting». The founding pieces were joined by some acquisitions that the museum made later, among which The Annunciation from the Italian period by El Greco and a series of portraits by Goya stand out.
The museum soon received much criticism for the state of conservation of the works, for the lack of rigor in their presentation and for the poor adaptation of the space to its uses. This situation was completely aggravated with the installation in the same building of the Ministry of Public Works in 1849. Finally, it was decided to dissolve it, incorporating its collections into the Prado Museum, in 1872, causing a paradoxical situation in this, because although the collection of religious paintings was magnificently completed, on the other hand, the already chronic saturation of spaces suffered by the institution increased even more, which gave rise to the policy of deposits and transfers that has been maintained up to the present (fewer than 200 works were incorporated into the Prado, while 650 were deposited in other institutions). Among the collections that the extinct museum contributed to the Prado are the series of the Life of San Pedro Mártir and Santo Domingo de Guzmán, by Pedro Berruguete, from the Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila; The Triumph of Saint Augustine, the most important work by Claudio Coello in the museum, from the Augustinian convent in Alcalá de Henares; the paintings on the altarpiece of the Four Easters in the church of the Convent of San Pedro Mártir de Toledo, in Maíno, perhaps the creative pinnacle of this artist; the altarpiece of the Colegio de doña María de Aragón, in Madrid, a fundamental work by El Greco; The Fountain of Grace and the triumph of the Church over the Synagogue, from the environment of Jan van Eyck (El Parral Monastery —Segovia—), as well as other works by Goya, Alonso Cano, Francisco Rizi, Ambrosius Benson, Cajés, and representation of almost all the painters of the Madrid school of the seventeenth century.
In 2004 an exhibition was organized showing the treasures that, from this museum, are kept in the Prado.
The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (M. A. M., or MAM) was a national museum dedicated to art from the 19th century and XX that existed from 1894 to 1971, the year in which its collections of nineteenth-century art were absorbed by the Prado, while those of the 20th century remained in the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo (MEAC), predecessor of the current Museo Reina Sofía.
It was legally created by a Royal Decree of August 4, 1894 and was located in the Palace of the National Library and Museums, also home to the National Library and the National Archaeological Museum, occupying the southwest corner of it. The official opening of its facilities took place in 1898.
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Until the constitution of the M.A.M., the public collection of contemporary Spanish art was also the responsibility of the Museo del Prado itself, which from its first catalogue, written by Luis Eusebi, echoed a unitary section called "Contemporary Schools of Spain", and later he combined his work of contemporary collecting with the Museo de la Trinidad, which in the same way had in its catalogs a "Gallery of contemporary paintings", works that came from the acquisitions made by the State in the National Exhibitions. of Fine Arts as well as some donations. However, the latter was dissolved, integrating its funds in the Prado in 1872. After the opening of the Museo de Arte Moderno, the Museo del Prado continued to bring in painting from the 19th century, Spanish and European, and exhibit it in their rooms. Among the most important collections of 19th-century painting admitted to the Prado while the M.A.M. remained open is the well-known Ramón de Errazu legacy, made up basically of paintings from the XIX, which did not leave the Villanueva building until after 1971.
The Museum of Modern Art consisted of two departments, painting and sculpture, marking a Royal Decree of October 26, 1895 the chronological limit in Goya, considered the "last representative of the old Spanish painting". Establishing a criterion of "universal character", to connect Spanish art with that of "cultivated nations", the collections had to begin in "the time when the aesthetic theories put into practice by David or Canova and introduced in Spain at the beginning of the this century, changed the current of national art", that is, from José Madrazo and the other Spanish disciples of David in terms of painting and José Álvarez Cubero and Antonio Solá in relation to sculpture.
A single catalog of the collections was produced, the Provisional Catalog of the Museum of Modern Art, in 1899, of which a second edition was made a year later and which included six hundred and ninety-nine three paintings and drawings and eighty-eight sculptures. In 1985 the Catalogue of 19th-century paintings of the Museo del Prado was published, which unified those that the Museo del Prado itself had kept in its collections for the existence of the M.A.M., with those that had been exposed there, as well as the deposits in other venues made by both institutions. Pieces by nearly a hundred authors appeared in it, including artistic movements such as neoclassicism, romanticism and realism, but others such as impressionism and post-impressionism were absent. The vast majority were by Spanish artists, although there were also a few examples of the work of artists from other countries, such as the French Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, the Dutchman living in Great Britain Lawrence Alma-Tadema or the Belgian Théo van Rysselberghe. Signed by Joaquín de la Puente, it only referred to the works that were physically preserved in the Casón del Buen Retiro building, and not to the works that still remained in the Villanueva building or, above all, to the large deposits outside the Meadow.
One of the most serious problems the museum suffered throughout its existence was the lack of space. On the one hand, he came to treasure a large number of works, including many large-format paintings, something very common in the genre of history painting, one of the most thriving in the second half of the century XIX. On the other is the fact that it had to share the Palace of the National Library and Museums with several other institutions: the National Library, the National Archaeological Museum, the National Museum of Natural Sciences, the National Historical Archive, the National Iconography Board and the Society of Friends of Art. This meant that only a small part of it corresponded to him. The result was that a policy of depositing works in provincial museums and official administrative bodies was put into practice —which, in fact, had already been initiated by the Museo del Prado itself since the incorporation of the Museo de la Trinidad—, ending most of the funds outside of the institution itself. This is precisely the origin of an important part of the current Scattered Meadow. The only attempt that was made to solve this situation was the announcement in 1933 of a national architecture competition in order to provide the museum with a new headquarters. The project by Fernando García Mercadal was selected, which proposed a single-height building, for whose location he proposed the extension of Paseo de la Castellana. However, it was never built.
New acquisitions
Since the beginnings of the Prado there was interest in completing the collections through the acquisition of new works and in fact a few months after its inauguration, on April 5, 1820, the first of them was purchased, La Trinidad, by José de Ribera, for which Ferdinand VII paid 20,000 reales to the painter Agustín Esteve.
The museum's acquisitions have been very important in terms of quality and number (more than 2,300 works in the paintings section alone) and, as noted, they have taken place in different ways. On the one hand, donations, inheritances and legacies. Among the works received thanks to them, the most frequent has always been Spanish painting, and Goya the author whose collection has been most enriched in this way. On the other hand, the policy of acquiring works of art by the State, which has often had the Prado as a beneficiary. In this last aspect, it is worth noting the modality of paying taxes through works of art, or dación, adopted by the Spanish Historical Heritage Law of 1985 and which has enriched the state collections in a very notable way. This possibility, inspired by the famous French "Malraux Law", could initially be applied to inheritance tax, extending to any tax debt under the Patronage Law of 2002.
Policies aimed at enhancing the Prado have tended more to reinforce existing collections than to make up for what is lacking. In this way, works by Velázquez (Ferdinando Brandani, formerly known as Portrait of a man, the so-called barber of the Pope), Goya and Valdés Leal have been incorporated, although some by artists have also been included. with a poor presence in the collections, such as Lucas Cranach the Elder (a very remarkable Virgin with Child, donated by the businessman Juan Abelló in 1988) or Juan de Flandes (his masterpiece The Crucifixion, painted for the main altarpiece of the cathedral of Palencia, also received in 2005 as payment of taxes, in this case from the Ferrovial company —seven million euros—). Another acquisition in this line is that of La Virgen de la granada, by Fra Angelico, bought from Casa de Alba in 2016 for eighteen million euros.
It would take too long to detail all the acquisitions made by the museum in its almost 200 years of existence. As for the legacies, the most notable in recent times was the one made by Manuel Villaescusa, in 1991. With its amount, seven thousand million pesetas, a group of works was purchased, among which the Bodegón de caza, Vegetables and Fruits by Sánchez Cotán, Blind man playing the hurdy-gurdy by Georges de La Tour (painter not present at the museum until then), A fable by El Greco and part of The Countess of Chinchón, by Goya, the other part paid for with state funds. The latter was chosen in the year 2000 «Acquisition of the Year» («acquisition of the year») worldwide by the magazine Apollo of London, as would be the painting by Fra Angelico in 2016.
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Going back in time, the donation of Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger (1881) and the bequests of Ramón de Errazu (1904), Pablo Bosch (1915) and Pedro Fernández Durán (1931), were also very outstanding. as well as the Cambó donation (1941) and that of Marius de Zayas (1943). The donation of the Belgian banker Emile d'Erlanger consisted of the series of Black Paintings of the Quinta del Sordo, a farm located on the banks of the Manzanares river that had belonged to Goya himself and that d' Erlanger had acquired it in 1873, transferring the paintings to canvas, which had been executed on the walls of the same house. After unsuccessfully trying to sell them in Paris, he ended up donating them to the Prado, almost as a way of getting rid of them, realizing that, at that time, they were not excessively appreciated.
The Mexican with Spanish roots (Basque-Navarrese and Andalusian) Ramón de Errazu bequeathed to the museum in his will twenty oil paintings and five watercolors by artists of the century XIX, among which stand out Mariano Fortuny and Raimundo Madrazo and the French Ernest Meissonier (of whom he also donated the Portrait of a Lady to the Museum of Modern Art in 1904 and which ended up also in the Prado when absorbing the nineteenth-century funds of that one in 1971); and Paul Baudry, from whom he bequeathed The Pearl and the Wave, one of the most outstanding nudes painted in Paris during the Second Empire, and which was acquired by Empress Eugenia de Montijo after being exhibited at the Salon of 1863.
The donation by Pablo Bosch from Barcelona was one of the most important donations in the history of the museum. Among the 89 works from his collection (for which he had received substantial offers from abroad, especially from Germany), pieces by Spanish Gothic painters and Flemish Primitives stand out, as well as a valuable collection of coins and medals.
The legacy of Fernández Durán from Madrid included a very large collection of drawings, 2,875, a third of the total that the museum has, including two by the hand of Miguel Ángel, ascribed, with complete certainty, to the master in 2003 (previously attributed to his school); and decorative arts, as well as nearly a hundred paintings, including the Madonna and Child, by Rogier van der Weyden —also known as Madonna Durán— and five paintings by Goya, or at least attributed to him, such as the famous The Colossus.
The donation of Cambó is also very noteworthy, who delivered seven works from his collection to the Prado in 1941: three of the four panels of The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, by Botticelli; two paintings that were attributed to Taddeo Gaddi and that are now assigned to the Master of the Madonna of Mercy; and one by Giovanni dal Ponte (The Seven Liberal Arts), with the intention of making up for the lack of primitive Italians in the national art gallery —the other was a Musician Angel by Melozzo da Forlì, considered for years to be an imitation, but now considered a copy of the XV century. Besides, there were Donated the previous year to the museum the Bodegón con cacharros by Francisco de Zurbarán. For his part, the Mexican Marius de Zayas donated in 1943 an important set of seven ancient sculptures, which included an Egyptian and a Mesopotamian one, the latter deposited since 1979 in the National Archaeological Museum.
Another notable donation is the one made in 2013 by José Luis Várez Fisa (who had previously donated works in 1970 and 1988), made up of twelve medieval pieces, among which two tables by Pedro Berruguete (San Gregorio Magno and San Jerónimo and San Ambrosio and San Agustín) and especially the Virgin of Tobed, traditionally attributed to Jaume Serra. As a thank you, the museum has dedicated a monographic room (the old 52A, which has been renamed "Sala Várez Fisa", reopened in December 2013), something that the Prado has not done since the legacies Ramón de Errazu, Bosch and Fernández Durán. Also notable was the one made in 2015 by Plácido Arango, with twenty-five works, twenty-one paintings and the complete series, four lithographs, of Goya's Los toros de Bordeaux —in 1991 he had donated another eighty of his engravings, a complete first edition of Los caprichos—, complemented the following year with an additional painting. In it, the two works by Pedro de Campaña (Pieter Kempeneer), a painter who until then was believed to be the Prado did not own any work, The Dream of Saint Joseph, by Herrera el Mozo, possibly his best work along with The Triumph of Saint Hermenegildo (also by Prado), and the three oil paintings by Zurbarán, especially Saint Francis in Prayer.
The Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado has also contributed several important works, the latest in 2020: Hannibal Winner Contemplates Italy from the Alps for the First Time, by Goya. Previously, it had collaborated financially in the acquisition of the Virgin of the Granada, and it has also managed other incorporations such as the Visit of Queen María Amalia of Saxony to the Arch of Trajan in Benevento, by Italian Antonio Joli, donated by Lucrecia Larregui de Aramburuzabala, a Navarrese resident in Mexico, through the foundation.
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All in all, perhaps the most famous work that entered the Prado in the XX century was Guernica , bequeathed by its author and entered into the collections in 1981. This painting, which due to its meaning and artistic significance, is undoubtedly the key piece of contemporary art, is exhibited today in the Museo Reina Sofía. Apart from Among those mentioned, there have been many other legacies and donations that have considerably enriched the collections, among them those of the widowed Duchess of Pastrana, the Duchess of Villahermosa, the Count of Niebla, the Count of Cartagena, the Dukes of Tarifa and the Marquis de Casa-Torres, to name just a few of the most important.
By popular subscription, at the initiative of the Bilbao shipowner Horacio Echevarrieta, La Virgen del caballero de Montesa, by Paolo de San Leocadio, was acquired in 1919 for 100,000 pesetas (75,000 together with the subscription and the rest provided by the Board of Trustees of the Museum). In 1910, the painter José Garnelo had organized a subscription to acquire The Adoration of the Magi in his magazine Por el arte. by Hugo van der Goes (the Monforte Altarpiece ) and prevent his departure to Germany, but he did not manage to raise more than 76,000 pesetas of the 1,268,000 needed and finally in 1914 the extraordinary panel was sold to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin (although after World War II it went to the Gemäldegalerie). This modality of acquisition remained forgotten for almost a century, but in 2018 it was reactivated —renamed "crowdfunding"—, this time with full success, since the entire required amount was covered thanks to the contribution of c There were six thousand five hundred donors, which made it possible to incorporate a work by the French Simon Vouet, Portrait of a girl with a dove, into the collection.
Due to the form of donation (BBVA, twenty-six million euros, the largest amount made so far in Spain) it entered the Prado in 2006 as part of the Naseiro Collection of Spanish still lifes, the best in the world in its class. Of the almost one hundred paintings in the collection, forty works by nineteen different painters were incorporated into the museum, nine of which were not represented before with paintings of this genre, and with them a whole facet of Spanish art that had remained little known for the general public.
Regarding the purchases with own funds and the secondments of works acquired by the State, there are pieces of the importance of the Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma, by Rubens (1969) —acquired to celebrate the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the museum—, the Portrait of Jovellanos by Goya (1974), the Portrait of the Marquesa de Santa Cruz, by the same author (1986), or the Portrait of Ferdinando Brandani, by Velázquez (2003). To these was added in 2010 The wine of the feast of Saint Martin, an outstanding glue tempera twill hitherto unknown by the painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, acquired for seven million euros (of which two and a half were contributed by the Prado from its own funds), and in 2012 the Gothic panel The Prayer in the Garden with the donor Luis I of Orleans, purchased directly by the museum for 850 000 euro. In January 2016, a masterpiece by Fra Angelico, the Virgin of the Pomegranate, until then belonging to the Casa de Alba collection, was purchased for eighteen million euros, ten paid for by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, four by the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation and many others by the museum itself. It is one of the most relevant acquisitions of the Prado throughout its history, due to its quality, perfect state of conservation and the reinforcement it represents in the collection of the Italian Quattrocento. This purchase has also deserved the recognition from Apollo magazine, which awarded him its “Apollo Acquisition of the Year Award 2016” award.
Sections
Painting
Spanish painting
With almost 4,900 pieces, the Spanish painting section is not only the most complete and extensive in the museum, constituting the central nucleus of its collections, but it also represents the largest numerically and qualitatively important collection of this school in the world. Chronologically, it ranges from the Romanesque murals of the 12th century to the early years of the XX.
Its extremely rich collections include Gothic painting, from anonymous masters to authors such as Juan Rodríguez de Toledo, Nicolás Francés, Pedro Berruguete and the Spanish-Flemish artists Diego de la Cruz, Juan de Flandes and Fernando Gallego and in the area of the Crown of Aragon Jaume Serra, Lluís Borrassà, Jaume Huguet, Pere Lembrí, Miguel Ximénez, Bartolomé Bermejo, Martín Bernat, Rodrigo and Francisco de Osona, Joan Reixach or Jacomart; the Spanish Renaissance, represented by Pedro Machuca, Alonso Berruguete, Juan de Juanes, Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina, or Juan Correa de Vivar; and Mannerism, with Luis de Morales, Blas de Prado, Pedro de Campaña and the absolute protagonism of El Greco, of which the largest group of works in existence is exhibited, including some of the most relevant.
The most brilliant period of Spanish painting, the Baroque, has excellent examples of practically all the authors and genres of the moment, such as Zurbarán, Ribera, Murillo, Juan de Valdés Leal, Maíno, Alonso Cano, Carreño, Ribalta, José Antolínez, Antonio de Pereda, Francisco Rizi, Herrera el Mozo, Juan Sánchez Cotán, Claudio Coello and, above all of them, the great master of Hispanic painting, Velázquez, the "king" of the museum in the words of the French critic of the XIX Athanase-Louis Torterat, Count Clément de Ris, from which a collection unparalleled in the world is exhibited, made up of most of his masterpieces.
From the 18th century, stands out the very extensive collection of Goya, which includes all the periods and facets of his art, with a total of one hundred thirty-three paintings, some of disputed authorship, to which add another three received on deposit. Also relevant are the still lifes of Luis Meléndez and the varied collection of Luis Paret, considered the best Spanish painter of the Rococo style.
The collection of 19th century paintings is delimited by the figures of Goya and Picasso. With some exceptions, the works of authors who died after 1828, the year of the death of the man from Fuendetod, are considered to be part of it, while those of those born after 1881, the year of the birth of the man from Malaga, were attached to the MNCARS by Royal Decree 410/1995, of March 17. The General Catalog of 19th Century Painting in the Prado Museum, of 2015, included a total of two thousand six hundred and ninety records, including the meager funds of foreign schools.
The process of enhancing this collection culminated in the opening in October 2009 of twelve rooms in the Villanueva building, which housed one hundred and seventy-six pieces from this period (including some by artists from other countries). One of the rooms was revolving, room 60, designated as "Room for the presentation of 19th century collections", although with the rearrangement that took place in 2021 it became one more room for the permanent collection. Although it is common to repeat that they are shown for the first time since 1896 integrated with the rest of the collection, the truth is that since 1905, when the works of the Ramón de Errazu legacy were exhibited for the first time, the Prado has always He hung some Spanish paintings from the 19th century in the context of his collection. Next to Goya, the work of Vicente López was traditionally exhibited and there was a room dedicated to paintings by the Madrazo family (José, Federico and Raimundo), Esquivel (Antonio María) and Ferrant, among others. Only for twelve years, those that mediated between the closure of the Casón and the opening of the rooms in the Villanueva Building (1997-2009), the painting of the century XIX remained invisible in the Prado rooms (with the exception of the inaugural exhibition of the extension, in 2007).
Among the latest acquisitions that have enriched the Spanish collection are the purchases of The Countess of Chinchón, by Goya (2000), and Ferdinando Brandani, by Velázquez (2003). On the other hand, the two greatest weaknesses of the collection, medieval painting and still lifes, have been partly alleviated in recent times, especially the second, thanks mainly in the case of the first to the donation Várez Fisa (2013) (to which is added the deposit by the Duke of Infantado of the altarpiece of the Gozos de Santa María), and the other to the partial purchase of the Naseiro collection (2006), to which are added some occasional acquisitions that have allowed important still life artists to be incorporated until then absent, such as the Still Life with Game, Vegetables and Fruits, by Sánchez Cotán (1991), and the Still Life with Pomegranate and Grapes , by Juan de Zurbarán (2015), as well as reinforcing poorly represented subgenres, such as still lifes with figures of the century XVII (Fruit Sellers, by Jerónimo Jacinto Espinosa (2008), The Chicken Coop, by Alejandro de Loarte (201 1), or Pícaro de cocina, by Francisco López Caro (2015, Arango donation)).
Italian painting
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The Italian painting collection consists of more than a thousand works and is undoubtedly one of the great attractions of the museum, even though it suffers from certain gaps, especially with regard to works from before the century XVI. Despite the fact that already in the time of Juan II of Castile, Italian literature had a great influence in Spain, novelties in the field of plastic arts arrived late, and its presence continued until the XVI very sparse. This was due in large part to the predilection both of the king himself and of his daughter, Isabella the Catholic, for Flemish painting, and it is the reason why the collection of Italian primitives in the museum is very reduced.
Thus, the works corresponding to the Trecento and Quattrocento are very scarce, although many of them are of high quality. The most important nucleus is made up of the works acquired throughout the history of the institution, from The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, which the then director of the Prado, Federico de Madrazo, obtained in 1861 that the Monastery de las Descalzas Reales ceded to the museum in exchange for a copy executed by himself; to those incorporated recently. The collection experienced a notable increase thanks to the Cambó donation, which included two tablets dedicated to the life of Saint Eloi from the Master of the Madonna della Misericordia (which Cambó acquired as originals from Taddeo Gaddi), another by Giovanni dal Ponte and, above all, three of the four tables of The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti by Botticelli.
The other nucleus, much smaller, corresponds to the works from the Spanish Royal Collection, where the Transit of the Virgin by Andrea Mantegna stands out. The rest of the works correspond to authors such as Francesco Traini, by whom it is a Madonna and Child, which was the only example of Italian painting prior to 1450 within the Royal Collection.
Although the museum's collection offers a limited overview of Italian art prior to 1500, it does boast authentic masterpieces from such an important chapter of Art History. Apart from the pieces by Mantegna, Botticelli, or the excellent Dead Christ, Supported by an Angel by Antonello da Messina, acquired in 1965, the most valuable collection is made up of the three works by Fra Angelico: a small predella of an altarpiece dedicated to the life of San Antonio Abad, and two of his best works: The Annunciation and The Virgin of the Granada. The incorporation of the latter in 2016 remarkably reinforced the body of works of the Italian Quattrocento and positioned the institution as an important point for knowledge of the painter's work. Likewise, there are two works by Amico Aspertini and his brother Guido (The Abduction of the Sabine Women and The Continence of Scipio), a triptych and a Madonna and Child by Antoniazzo Roman, a Virgin and Child Between Two Saints by Giovanni Bellini, although with wide participation in the workshop, a St. Anthony the Abbot Meditating, by Giovanni Agostino da Lodi, and a Saint Francis of Assisi by Francesco Francia, acquired in 2021.
The painting of the Cinquecento begins the great period of Italian painting in the Prado with some major works by Raphael and his studio, especially by Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni. The museum is one of the institutions with the largest number of paintings from the last years of the master's production, including works as relevant as the Virgin of the Fish, El Pasmo de Sicilia, or the Holy Family with Saint John, called "the Pearl" by Felipe IV, who considered it the most precious painting in his collection. The extensive collection of works by this artist (eight paintings, including the autographs and those made to a greater or lesser extent by his disciples) accounts for the prestige he enjoyed in Spain, where his works were greatly appreciated and in demand. One of the most important gaps in the Prado is the lack of autograph examples of Leonardo da Vinci. There are two paintings by his follower Bernardino Luini, although without a doubt the closest work to the master is the singular copy of the Mona Lisa. Its landscape background was hidden for decades by a black repaint, in 2012, after its study and restoration, it was determined that it had been made in parallel and simultaneously to the original by one of the master's disciples. Other noted names of plastic Renaissance present with important works are Sebastiano del Piombo, Dosso Dossi, Correggio, Andrea del Sarto and Federico Barocci, authors in the transition to Mannerism, barely represented by a handful of works by Parmigianino, Bronzino or Francesco Salviati.
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The Venetian painting of the XVI deserves special mention, with a wide presence to the point of constituting the best collection of it out of Italy. The central artist of the school, Titian, was the favorite painter of Carlos V and Felipe II and, although several of his works remain in the Monastery of El Escorial, the representation in the Prado of the cadorino exceeds thirty paintings. For the first Habsburgs he composed some of his masterpieces, such as the Equestrian Portrait of Charles V in Mühlberg or the poesie (poems). This series consisted of six works, although there were two others that apparently were never sent, Medea and Jason and Actaeon Destroyed by Dogs. Of these, the only one that follows in Spain it is that of the Prado, Venus and Adonis. Other masters such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Lorenzo Lotto, Bonifazio Veronese, Palma the Younger, Moroni, Bernardino Licinio, Jacopo Bassano and his sons Francesco and Leandro, and even some precursors such as Vincenzo Catena, are also represented in the collection.
Italian Baroque painting constitutes one of the most compact nuclei of the Prado, due to the variety of artists and the quality of the works that we can admire. The two great pictorial tendencies of the time, tenebrism and Bolognese classicism, have good collections, the first beginning with the initiator Caravaggio (David victor of Goliath) and his followers, such as Orazio Gentileschi (Moses saved from the waters), his daughter Artemisia Gentileschi, Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (known as Battistello), Giovanni Serodine or Bernardo Cavallino. The presence of Bolognese classicism is also nourished, with paintings by Annibale Carracci (Venus, Adonis and Cupid, Assumption of Mary), Domenichino, Guido Reni (Hippomenes and Atalanta), Guercino, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Alessandro Turchi and Giovanni Lanfranco. Even the decorative Baroque trend has a singular example by Pietro da Cortona (The Nativity, for whose support he used a vitreous paste called aventurine and which has been recently restored) and the excellent group of works by Luca Giordano, who worked in Spain for King Carlos II. To all of the above, it is worth adding the examples of other important Baroque authors, such as Francesco Furini, Salvatore Rosa, Orazio Borgianni, Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Mattia Preti, Andrea Sacchi, Carlo Maratta, Massimo Stanzione, Andrea Vaccaro, Bernardo Strozzi or Alessandro Magnasco.
The figure of Giambattista Tiepolo closes the suggestive chapter of Italian painting in the Prado, along with other artists who like him came to Spain to decorate the new Royal Palace in Madrid, such as his son Giandomenico and Corrado Giaquinto. All of them have an estimable, in quality and quantity, representation. Sadly, there is a lack of examples by vedutistas such as Canaletto and Francesco Guardi, well represented in the neighboring Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, although the Prado does have examples by Antonio Joli, Gaspare Vanvitelli (Caspar van Wittel) and Francesco Battaglioli. And within the field of architectural caprice (vedute ideate), a group of paintings by Giovanni Paolo Pannini as well as one by Leonardo Coccorante.
Flemish painting
The Flemish painting section is the third in the museum, both in quantity (more than a thousand works) and in quality, only behind the Spanish one and almost at the level of the Italian one. As in the case of both, a large part of their funds comes from the Royal Collection. On the one hand, it includes representatives of early Dutch painting, the so-called Flemish Primitives, such as Robert Campin (with four works of the approximately twenty attributed to him), Weyden (The Descent from the Cruz, Madonna Durán), Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus and Hans Memling (triptych of The Adoration of the Magi). We should also point out two works by an anonymous author: The Fountain of Grace, made in the environment of Jan van Eyck, and Calvary with Saints Jerome, Saint James, Mary Magdalene and Catherine, with family of kneeling donors, attributed to the circle of Hugo van der Goes. The museum also exhibits the best Bosch collection in the world, which includes three of his capital works: the The Garden triptychs of Delights, The Hay Wain and the Adoration of the Magi. They come from the personal collection of Felipe II, who was so fond of this painter that he ordered to buy as many of his works as possible.
Equally outstanding are the paintings by Joachim Patinir, Marinus van Reymerswaele and Anthonis Mor van Dashorst (Antonio More) (the largest collections of these artists), as well as the two by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (The Triumph of the Death and The Wine of the Feast of Saint Martin), and others by Gerard David, Jan Gossaert, Ambrosius Benson, Jan van Scorel, Quentin Metsys, Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Michel Coxcie.
The collection from the 17th century exceeds six hundred works, which makes it one of the best collections of Flemish Baroque painting in the world, perhaps only comparable to that of the Museum of Art History in Vienna. The Prado has the most important collection of Rubens, with some ninety paintings (the specific figure varies depending on the sources, since the authorship of some of the works is under discussion) and some drawings. Felipe IV commissioned dozens of paintings to decorate his palaces and was also the main buyer at the auction held on his death with the works that he owned in his studio. The fact that many of the Prado paintings were directly commissioned by the king of one of the most powerful countries in Europe at that time (in addition to his own sovereign) has also resulted in the fact that their execution be of a great average quality, counting a good number of them among his masterpieces. The museum also has more than twenty-five examples by van Dyck, several by Jacob Jordaens (including his Self-portrait with his Family), four of the rare still lifes by Clara Peeters and the The Five Senses series. painted in collaboration by Jan Brueghel the Elder (Brueghel de Velours) and Rubens. They are covered by a generous sample of landscapes, hunting scenes, still lifes and other genre themes by authors such as Peter Snayers, Sebastian Vrancx, Joos de Momper, Alexander Adriaenssen, Osias Beert, Paul de Vos, Frans Snyders and Jan Fyt, as well as a collection (perhaps the largest in the world) by David Teniers the Younger, of which about twenty-five works are exhibited. On the other hand, the representation of the Flemish caravaggists is very short, barely two works by Theodoor Rombouts and several by Louis Finson, or Ludovicus Finsonius, Nicolas Régnier, Gerard Seghers and Adam de Coster.
French painting
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It is the fourth most widely represented national school, with more than three hundred paintings, although a long way from the previous three. As in the Italian and Flemish cases, here historical circumstances also exerted a great influence, and the almost permanent belligerence between Spain and France throughout the centuries XVI and XVII restricted artistic exchanges between the two countries, compounded by differences in taste prevailing in each of them.
There are hardly any examples prior to 1600, although among them is an outstanding panel dated between 1405 and 1408, by an anonymous author, perhaps Colart de Laon, acquired in May 2012: The Prayer in the Garden with the Donor Louis I of Orléans. The 17th and 18th include masterful works by Poussin, such as The Triumph of David and El Parnaso; A group of outstanding landscapes by Claudio de Lorraine has been preserved, including three paintings by Simon Vouet and four by Sébastien Bourdon. Tenebrism has striking examples of Georges de La Tour, Nicolas Tournier and Valentin de Boulogne. Portrait painters of the Spanish Bourbons, such as Jean Ranc, Louis-Michel van Loo and Michel-Ange Houasse, as well as French Bourbons, such as Hyacinthe Rigaud and Antoine-François Callet, have a presence alongside Rococo masters such as Watteau and Boucher, and the landscape painters Claude Joseph Vernet and Jean Pillement.
The Prado Museum's French painting collection is undoubtedly one of the least studied aspects of the collections to date. There is a significant number of neoclassical works, including one by Merry-Joseph Blondel and several by unknown painters around J.-L. David who will offer pleasant surprises in the future, as well as a significant number of examples of the French disciples of J. A. D. Ingres. The collections from the first half of the 19th century also include a portrait of Charles X of France by François Gérard. There are also more modern works of great interest, from the second half of the century, such as the two female portraits by Ernest Meissonier, something very rare within his production, a famous nude painting by Paul Baudry, The Pearl and the Wave , which belonged to Empress Eugenia de Montijo, a portrait by Félix-Henri Giacomotti, two by Carolus-Duran, four oil paintings by Léon Bonnat and a Landscape attributed to Alfred Sisley. And, already from the beginning of the XX century, a portrait by Paul Chabas and a landscape by Henri Martin.
German painting
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Few are the works of German painting conserved in the Prado and historically in Spain in general (until the arrival of the Thyssen collection). Despite the strong relationship of the Spanish Habsburgs with the Holy Roman Empire, most of the Spanish monarchs opted for another type of painting. Because of this, this collection is reduced in number, although of great quality.
The group of four masterpieces by Albrecht Dürer stands out above all, including his iconic Self-portrait with Gloves from 1498 and the pair of Adam and Eve panels. Of the other works, a Virgin with the Child Jesus, Saint John and angels and two curious hunting scenes stand out, all three by the hand of Lucas Cranach the Elder (in addition, in 2001 a Portrait of Juan Federico "the Magnanimous" believed to be Cranach's autograph, but later considered a workshop work); two very important allegories by Hans Baldung Grien, The Ages and Death and Harmony or The Three Graces, a small painting by Adam Elsheimer, Ceres in the house of Hecuba, and already from the XVIII century, a large group of works, twenty-nine (one of doubtful attribution), by Anton Raphael Mengs, who was appointed First Painter to King Charles III and worked at the Court between 1761 and 1769 and from 1774 to 1776. They are basically portraits of the Royal Family (or their entourage, such as the Portrait by José Nicolás de Azara, acquired in 2012), although there is also a self-portrait, the Portrait of the Jesuit father Francesco Pepe and some works on religious subjects. Added to them is a single piece by Angelica Kauffmann: Anna von Escher van Muralt, entered in 1926 with the Luis de Errazu legacy; a Saint Sebastian, by Gottlieb Schick, donated in 2015 by Pablo de Jevenois, and a portrait of the Infanta Paz de Borbón by Franz von Lenbach, donated by the Madrid City Council.
Dutch painting
The continuous hostility (on many occasions open war) between Spain and the United Provinces after their separation in 1581 made it extraordinarily difficult for painting of the century to reach Spain XVII of that country, the period of greatest splendor of this school, to which the course taken by Dutch painting after independence also contributed, seeking its own style that departed and in many In some cases, it was even antagonistic to the classicist ideal, which meant that for a long time it was not to the taste of collectors, not only in Spain, but also in other countries where classical art was still very valid, such as France and Italy. Thus, while Spanish collectors favored religious and mythological works, in the Netherlands there was a boom in the genres of landscape, seascapes, still lifes and costumbrista scenes, acquired by a bourgeoisie who wanted to express their identification in this way. with their land and their way of life. All of this resulted in the Museo del Prado's collection not being particularly extensive, also lacking key names such as Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals. Most of the works in the Prado come from the Royal Collection and almost all of them were already acquired in the 18th century, especially by Felipe V and his second wife, Isabel de Farnesio.
Dutch painting includes one hundred works, almost all from the 17th century, among which an important painting by Rembrandt stands out: Judit at the Banquet of Holofernes, formerly identified as Artemis receiving Mausolo's ashes or as Sofonisba receiving the cup of poison. It is one of the masterpieces of Rembrandt's early period, which seems to portray his wife Saskia in the main female figure.
The Dutch collection also includes a still life by Pieter Claesz. and three by Willem Claesz. Heda, all four from the Fernández Durán legacy, and works by Jan Davidszoon de Heem, also a still life artist, a rare example of this genre by Gabriël Metsu, three small-format scenes by Leonaert Bramer, a portrait by Gerard ter Borch, several works by the costumbrist Adriaen van Ostade, the chiaroscuro artist Mathias Stomer, the landscape painters Herman van Swanevelt and Simon de Vlieger, the animal painter Paulus Potter, the Italianate Salomon de Bray and Jan Both, and an important series by Philips Wouwerman. This collection has been the subject of an exhibition and the publication of its first catalog raisonné in December 2009.
British Painting
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The historic rivalry between Spain and the United Kingdom, which began in the 16th century with Elizabeth's accession to the throne I of England and its definitive separation from the Church of Rome, did not precisely contribute to facilitating the acquisition of British works of art by the Spanish Monarchy. In such a way that, unlike the collections held by the institution of the other pictorial schools, in which many of the pieces —including the bulk of the masterpieces— come from the Royal Collection, in the section of British painting none of the works have such an origin. They all entered through donations, bequests, an inheritance, and, above all, purchases, made especially in the middle decades of the XX century.. The absence of contributions from the Royal Collection and the lack of interest in this school on the part of the museum leadership —despite, for example, the influence it exerted on a key artist for the Prado such as Goya—, except in the period of Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor and Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, has resulted in this collection being very brief, only thirty works (in addition to another two of doubtful attribution) by nineteen (or twenty-one) painters. It is also of little variety, since the vast majority are portraits made between the second half of the XVIII century and the first of the XIX, and is made up of pieces of a certain quality but unrepresentative, except in the case of those by Thomas Lawrence.
It is made up of works dated in the second half of the 18th century and in the XIX. Missing from it is Joseph Wright of Derby, the prominent renovator William Hogarth and the visionary William Blake, as well as the great names of English landscape painting (Turner, Constable), but there are, on the other hand, some examples of the work of the main portrait painters. On the list are, apart from the aforementioned Lawrence, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Francis Cotes, Henry Raeburn and John Hoppner, among others. On the other hand, it has four views of different parts of Spain by the romanticism painter David Roberts, which were acquired throughout the last century. Finally, from pre-Raphaeliteism, already in the Victorian era, the museum has a spectacular canvas by the Dutchman Lawrence Alma-Tadema living in the United Kingdom, Pompeian Scene or The Siesta, which it entered in 1887 by donation of Ernesto Gambart.
Other schools
More reduced still, barely testimonial, is the presence of paintings from the rest of the schools: Spanish American (more than twenty, but deposited in the Museum of America), Philippine, Swedish (Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller, August Franzén, Bernhard Österman), Danish (Eberhard Keil -Monsù Bernardo-), American, Central European... Regarding the Portuguese school, despite the geographical proximity and the close relationship between the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies, especially in times of the first Habsburgs, the presence of paintings from that country is negligible, being reduced to six works, almost all from the XIX century or early XX. The most outstanding pieces are the two from the 16th century, the oil paintings Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal, as Saint Catalina (the only known signed work by Domingo Carvalho) and King Sebastian of Portugal, by Cristóvão de Morais (in Spain also called Cristóbal de Morales).
Represented painters
No museum or collection in the world surpasses the Prado in terms of representation of the following artists:
- Velázquez (48 paintings, of the little more than 120 catalogued, among them almost all his capital works).
- Goya (133 paintings, including almost all of its upholstery cartons). He is the artist of whom he has a greater number of works. A large collection of drawings, engravings and correspondence is also preserved.
- Ribera (51 paintings, including many of his masterpieces; and numerous drawings and sketches).
- Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (55 paintings—some attributed—in addition to drawings).
- El Greco (36 paintings and two sculptures).
- Luis de Morales (28 paintings)
- Zurbarán (about 32 paintings, some of the dubious attribution).
- Maino. The museum has the best collection of works by this artist (with a total of 14), to which he dedicated anthological exhibition in 2009.
- Eduardo Rosales (almost 200 works, between paintings and drawings).
- Titian (40 paintings).
- Luca Giordano (more than 80 paintings).
- Rubens (almost a hundred works, some duo painted with other artists).
- David Teniers 'The Young' (more than 50 paintings).
- Jan Brueghel 'de Velours' (48 paintings, some of them in collaboration with other flamenco artists).
- Bosco (6 works, including some of its capital works).
- Patinir (4 paintings, including some of his masterpieces).
- Antonio Moro (15 paintings).
- Juan Fernández el Labrador, one of the most outstanding Spanish speakers, of which he has five works of the 13 of his that are known.
Drawings, prints and photographs
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Unlike what happens in the field of painting, in the field of works on paper the Prado collection is far from being among the first in the world. In fact, quantitatively, it does not even have primacy among the Spanish, since its holdings, more than 10,000 drawings and 6,000 prints, are surpassed by those of the National Library, 16,000 drawings and 100,000 single prints (in addition to another 600,000 included in books), and those of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, 15,000 drawings and 35,000 engravings. However, it has high-quality collections, as evidenced by the fact that since 2012 the museum has been a permanent member of the International Advisory Committee of Keepers of Public Collections of Graphic Art (International Advisory Committee of Conservators of Public Collections of Graphic Art), known as the Club of the 50 luxes, in which the most important cabinets of drawings and prints worldwide are represented.
For a long time this collection remained in ostracism, the pieces it had were not even systematically studied and published, with the exception of those by Goya. Thus, the volumes of the first catalog of the museum's drawings did not begin to be published until as late as 1972 (and even today, more than forty years later, two of the volumes are still pending: the IV, which would collect the Spanish drawings of the XIX century, and the VIII, dedicated to the drawings of schools other than the Spanish and Italian), and by then most of the works they collected were unpublished, they completely lacked previous bibliography. However, from then on they became aware that they were collections that also deserved attention, and temporary exhibitions began, with works from the own museum and other collections, and to make some purchases that would cover the many gaps, especially with the Villaescusa legacy.
The collection of Goya's drawings stands out, more than five hundred and twenty, the largest in the world since the total of his preserved drawings does not reach a thousand. Along with it, the collection of Spanish drawings of the century XIX, with more than three thousand original works, is of extraordinary importance. Other Spanish artists present in the collection are Juan Guas, with an extremely rare drawing, which represents the main chapel of the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, designed by him; Francisco Pacheco (Last Judgment), Vicente Carducho, with an important sketch, The expulsion of the Moriscos, Alonso Cano, José de Ribera, Murillo, Francisco Bayeu, Paret, with several of his best works, and Fortuny, with a set of more than eighty works that includes several watercolors.
The collections of foreign drawings are less extensive and varied, although they include notable Italian examples, thanks mainly to Pedro Fernández Durán, who contributed some 1,600 to the Prado (out of a total legacy of 2,785). The richest collections are those of Bolognese masters of the XVII century, especially Guercino. It is a very fragmentary collection, there are hardly any extensive sets by the same author, which on the one hand makes it impossible to study its characteristics and evolution in depth, but on the other has allowed us to have representation of a very broad group of artists, many of them absent from the painting collection, including Michelangelo, of which two preparatory drawings for the Sistine Chapel are preserved.
The presence of the rest of the schools is reduced. Regarding the French, there are around four hundred sheets. The majority, around two hundred and fifty, entered with the Fernández Durán legacy, among whose outstanding examples are a large design (1127 × 874 mm) by Laurent Pécheux, The Last Judgment, and Man with Joined Hands, by Théodore Géricault, preparatory to his painting The Raft of the Medusa. As for those to the north, two colored washes by Rubens stand out, as well as the Rubens Manuscript of Artistic Principles, or Bordes Manuscript, a copy of an original Rubens notebook lost in a fire, which includes two drawings that were most likely executed by the master himself. There is also an extensive collection of Mengs.
The collection of stamps is less important. Its main nuclei are Goya, the Spanish XIX century (especially Carlos de Haes) and reproduction prints, most of them of works from the museum itself.
Since 2004, the Cabinet has also been responsible for the historical photography collection (prior to 1939), formerly in the Museum Archive. In 2006, this initial set was joined by the group of photographs that included the Madrazo Collection and Library, purchased by the Prado in that year, and which currently constitutes the core of the collection. Its interest is focused, although not limited, to snapshots related to the institution: its headquarters, its collections and the artists present there. Chronologically it starts in 1847, and has about 15,000 copies.
Sculpture
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The museum's sculpture collection comprises more than 900 works, as well as nearly 200 sculptural fragments. It comes for the most part from the old royal collections, although it has been supplemented in recent times by acquisitions, bequests and donations. Among the latter, the one with seven ancient sculptures made in 1943 by the Mexican Marius de Zayas "as a tribute from his family to the Motherland" stands out, and the one made in 2000 by the Chilean painter Claudio Bravo, consisting of nineteen Greco-Roman sculptures.. As for the sculpture from the XIX century, it comes mostly from the extinct Museum of Modern Art, whose nineteenth-century funds passed to the Prado in 1971.
The first sculptures to be exhibited in the museum, which then still retained its initial name of the Royal Museum of Paintings —in 1838 replaced by the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture—, were the couple Carlos IV, seated, by Ramón Barba and María Luisa de Parma, seated, by José Álvarez Cubero, which were shown to the public between January 22 and February 5, 1827.
The collection of ancient sculptures is very remarkable, especially Roman works, but also some Greek originals, which were acquired to decorate the Royal Sites. There are rare examples of archaic Greek sculpture, as well as very important versions of Polykleitos Diadumenus, Venus pudica (Venus of the Dolphin), Sleeping Ariadne or Athena Párthenos of Phidias, Roman copies of the lost originals. The original Roman works include pieces as outstanding as the Apotheosis of Claudius or the Group of San Ildefonso, a masterpiece of imperial sculpture. Also noteworthy are the Muses that belonged to Cristina de Suecia, and that after the last enlargement are located in the oval hall, under the room of Las Meninas.
The second most important group of sculptures corresponds to the Renaissance and Mannerism. There are examples by John of Bologna, a Venus by Baccio Bandinelli (formerly believed to be by Bartolomeo Ammanati), an Apollo attributed to Silvio Cosini, and even two very rare carvings of El Greco, Epimetheus and Pandora. But of note from this period are the set of sculptures by the Milanese bronze artists Leone and Pompeo Leoni, among them the famous Charles V dominating Furor, considered the most important modern sculpture in the museum's collection. Later times, the sculptures bought in Italy by Velázquez stand out.
In the rooms that were opened in 2009 dedicated to the 19th century, several sculptures from this period were incorporated. Among those represented are José Álvarez Cubero, Ramón Barba, José Ginés, Antonio Solá, the brothers Venancio and Agapito Vallmitjana, José Llimona, Jerónimo Suñol, Agustín Querol and Mariano Benlliure.
Works by foreign sculptors are rare. Among the Italian ones are The painter Mariano Fortuny and Marsal, a bust made in bronze by the Barbedienne foundry in Paris from a terracotta by Vincenzo Gemito, and two sculptures previously attributed to Antonio Canova, Venus and Mars, now assigned to his circle, and Hebe, currently considered to have been made by his most brilliant disciple, Adamo Tadolini, copying an original by the master. But the bust Elizabeth II, Veiled is especially noteworthy, the masterpiece of Camillo Torreggiani, who also sculpted the pedestal. It is a display of technical virtuosity, along the lines of the veiled figures that Antonio Corradini, also Italian, executed in the previous century.
There is also another bust of Fortuny, in terracotta, modeled by his French friend Prosper d'Épinay. The museum also has a sculpture of Hermes, traditionally considered to be by the hand of the Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldsen and today assigned to his workshop, an Allegory of Dance, previously considered the work of the Frenchman Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and currently attached to his circle, and finally a reduction of Love and Psyche, the most outstanding work by the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel, executed by the master himself with the collaboration of his workshop.
On the other hand, there are, but not on display, five pieces by Ponciano Ponzano, four by Miguel Blay, two by Eduardo Barrón, and two marbles by the Irishman John Henry Foley, Sir Charles Bennet Lawes Witteronge as Mercury , and the Italian Antonio Tantardini, Two little princes in the cradle.
Decorative arts
Apart from the Treasure of the Dolphin, the collection of hard stones is also very notable, one of the most important in the world. In addition, the Decorative Arts section consists of various objects that in most cases deviate from the museum's exhibition line and that are therefore not regularly shown in its rooms -many of them are deposited in other institutions-, fundamentally received through donations and legacies, especially the Fernández Durán legacy. These collections include tapestries, embroideries, weapons, armor, furniture, glass, crystals, lacquers, fans, silverware, ivories, ceramics, earthenware and porcelain, as well as a set of eight hundred and four medals from the XV to the XIX and nine hundred forty-six autonomous currencies Spanish legacy by Pablo Bosch.
The Treasure of the Dauphin is so called because it belonged to Louis of France, the Great Dauphin, who died during a smallpox epidemic in 1711 without having come to reign, being part of it inherited from the following year by his second son, Felipe V of Spain. The first Spanish Bourbon received one hundred and sixty-nine works, a not very large percentage of the total (six hundred and ninety-eight inventoried in 1689), but which were selected among the best in the collection. However, almost all of those currently in existence are mutilated by thefts that occurred during the French invasion and another at the beginning of the XX century., which also reduced their number to one hundred and forty-four. Of these, forty-nine are made of rock crystal and another seventy-one are made of hard stones (semi-precious stones such as agate, lapis lazuli, chalcedony, jasper, jade, serpentine or alabaster) and other materials, such as nautilus shells. The fittings are generally gold, although there are also some silver, both gilded and in color, and are often enhanced with rich enamels and fine stones (turquoise, amethyst, garnet) and precious stones (diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies). besides pearls.
Most of the pieces are from the 16th and XVII, from Parisian and Italian workshops (in the case of rock crystal, specifically Milanese), although there are also specimens from Ancient Rome, Byzantine, medieval and even from Sasanian Persia, the Mughal Empire, and China.
Several of the leather cases in which these pieces were kept are also shown, and which were made by reproducing their shape on the outside in order to be able to identify them without having to open them. In the assembly inaugurated in 2018 in the bull of the northern attic, two sets are also exhibited that were separated from the rest at the end of the XIX, a Lacquer coffee set and a Case with a set of utensils for preparing game (trousse de veneur), which have been identified in recent years, the first in the Museum of America and the other in the National Archaeological Museum.
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The hard stone collection includes tabletops, consoles and decorative panels, both from Italian manufactures (Papal Workshops in Rome and Grand-Ducal Workshops in Florence — the Galleria dei Lavori, also known as Opificio delle Pietre Dure—), as well as the Royal Factory of Buen Retiro, which in addition to making porcelain also had a workshop dedicated to this specialty, the Royal Laboratory of Mosaics and Hard Stones of Buen Retiro (as well as a workshop of ivories, of which there is also representation: two reliefs by the hand of its director, the Italian sculptor Andrea Pozzi). These pieces have their origin in Ancient Rome, in the so-called opus sectile, or inlay of polychrome marbles and hardstones, a rare and expensive technique that had its heyday during the time of Emperor Augustus and was revived in the mid-century XVI in Florence and Rome itself.
In this collection, the two boards supported by gilt bronze lions stand out, the Tabletop of Felipe II and the Table of Don Rodrigo Calderón, exhibited in the Central Gallery and restored in 2008. The lions, each of which rests a claw on a reddish limestone ball, were commissioned by Velázquez during his second trip to Italy to decorate the Hall of Mirrors of the former Real Alcázar de Madrid, given that his position as chamber painter was combined with that of Royal Settler. The original set consisted of twelve, made between 1651 and 1652, of which the Prado has seven. Another four are preserved in the Throne Room of the Royal Palace of Madrid, while the remaining one suffered very serious damage in the fire of the Alcázar in 1734 (the other lion that the museum has is a copy from 2004 that has replaced another from 1837 which was very damaged). His model was a lion by Flaminio Vacca from 1594, itself a copy of one from the II century d. C., both at that time in the Villa Medici in Rome. They were cast by Matteo Bonucelli da Lucca (also known in Spain as Matteo Bonarelli de Luca), Bernini's assistant caster, and of whom the Prado has two other works: the Venus with the Shell and the famous Hermaphrodite that for several decades was exhibited in the Las Meninas room, the latter being an exceptional case, since the copy was of such quality that it surpassed the original.
The “Extended Meadow”
In January 2019, the museum had 3,472 works on deposit: 2,855 paintings, 254 decorative arts objects, 176 sculptures, 103 drawings, 59 architectural remains, and 25 prints. They were distributed among 277 institutions. Most of them were found in national territory and the rest (209 pieces) abroad, in legations and consulates. In order to optimize the management and use of these funds, the "Extended Prado" program (name which in turn replaced the traditional "Scattered meadow"). By then (November) the number of works transferred in deposit was 3446 distributed among 279 entities. Of these, only 57% were in museums, a percentage that, however, is likely to increase in the future, since the program prioritizes this type of organization as the destination of the deposits. The rest were 30% in public administrations, 7% in embassies and 6% in religious institutions.
There are deposits of the Prado in all the Spanish provinces, with the only exceptions being Cantabria, Guadalajara and Vizcaya, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The institution with the largest number of works deposited is the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, with 160 (the result of the rearrangement of collections between both museums carried out in 2016), followed by the Museum of Malaga (119) and the National Museum of Decorative Arts (117).
The exceptional vicissitudes of the Prado, first conceived as the Real Museum, elevated after La Gloriosa to the category of National Museum, which it absorbed in 1872 the funds of the dissolved Museum of the Trinity; together with the donations, acquisitions, legacies, which have been happening since the foundation in 1819, have caused the physical limits of the museum to be overwhelmed on many occasions.
From the moment it opened its doors, the museum had to dedicate more space to the warehouses than to the exhibition of works itself. This situation became more complicated with the arrival of funds from the Museo de la Trinidad, exceptionally large and made up of large altar paintings in many cases, difficult to display and store. It must be borne in mind that the museum building was not designed to house painting collections, but as a Cabinet and Academy of Sciences.
In this way, for a good part of the XIX and XX the policy of ceding to various institutions, on a temporary loan basis, was followed some of the collections that usually could not be exhibited due to lack of space. And if the shortage of spaces in the Prado was always serious, much worse was the situation of the Museum of Modern Art, whose pieces from the XIX century moved to the Prado in 1971. In addition to the considerable abundance of collections, including a good number of large-format paintings, there was a really small available space, since having to share the Palace of the National Library and Museums With two institutions of the importance of the National Library and the National Archaeological Museum, the part assigned to it was very small.
The deposits did not always follow pertinence criteria, since many of these works went to provincial or local museums, but others ended up in offices, churches and even private offices. This problem was not stopped until in 1987 when the Regulations for State-Owned Museums and the Spanish System of Museums circumscribed the making of deposits to museum institutions or institutions of high state representation.
And for 113 years there was no minimally rigorous control either, since while the first of the deposits was made in 1866, the systematic review of them did not begin until 1979, following a request made the previous year by the Court of Accounts through the Kingdom's General Prosecutor's Office. The work, arduous and also aggravated by the great dispersion of the funds, was carried out by the Museum's Depository of Works of Art Service, created for this purpose and which is Since then, he has held this responsibility. In addition, the rest of the institution's pictorial works were also inspected. This process of verifying all of the museum's pictorial holdings culminated in the 1990s with the publication, in three volumes, of the General Inventory of Paintings.
A first attempt, unsuccessful and limited to the works of the MAM, had been made when this center was divided into the National Museum of Century Art XIX and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, and proceeded to share the collections between both institutions. The general director of Fine Arts, Gratiniano Nieto, pointed out then that the records of the deposits were
without proper control and at the mercy of people or institutions who believe themselves owners of the works by misusing them. It is for the Director General to proceed to reorganize these deposit services by trying to put the sufficient means to allow the control of all the works disseminated in Official Centers and Museums of the Spanish provinces.
However, despite the initial intentions, the provisional study that was carried out, concluded in 1961, was carried out solely based on internal documentation, without verifying the real state of the pieces in the depository institutions nor taking photographs of them. the same. The provisional count was one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine works deposited in forty-eight Spanish institutions, and another ten in state agencies abroad.
Given the aforementioned lack of rigorous control over these funds that existed for more than a century, in July 2014 there were 885 pieces that remained unlocated, the vast majority (748) corresponding to the collections inherited from the Museum of the Trinidad and the M. A. M., which even so accounted for 540 less than in 1978. To these were added another 57 missing pieces that were among those attached to the Prado from the Reina Sofía, by virtue of the rearrangement of collections that both museums carried out in 2016, in compliance with Royal Decree 410/1995, of March 17. By the end of 2019, another 97 had been located.
Works received on deposit
Having most of its own funds not exhibited, it is obvious that the works of third parties that the museum accepts on deposit to exhibit in its rooms are limited to pieces of very high quality, consequently their number is very limited.
Many of these loaned paintings belong to other public bodies. However, contrary to what one might think, its permanence in the museum is not so secure, nor is the loan condition a mere technical formality. Thus, in 2014 National Heritage demanded from the Prado the return of four capital paintings that have been in it for more than seven decades, to exhibit them in its future Museum of Royal Collections. In addition, faced with the opposition of the art gallery, he took the decision in retaliation to deny any loan of works for temporary exhibitions at the Prado, including some that had already been previously committed.
Among them are works as significant as the Table of the Deadly Sins, The Garden of Earthly Delights, both by Bosco, The Descent from the Cross, by van der Weyden, and The Lavatory, by Tintoretto. The four come from the Monastery of El Escorial and entered the Prado in 1939, when they returned to Spain from Geneva, where they had been transferred during the Civil War. These works actually belong to National Heritage and remain in the Prado on deposit (The Descent was replaced in El Escorial by a copy by Michel Coxcie owned by the Prado).
Another outstanding piece, recently incorporated (2005), is Saint Jerome reading a letter, by Georges de La Tour, identified by José Milicua in the Palacio de la Trinidad, then the headquarters of the Instituto Cervantes, where it appeared as an anonymous work, and which was deposited by the then Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Also on deposit are six fragments of the wall paintings of the hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga that the Metropolitan left in indefinite deposit in 1957, in exchange for the apse of the church of San Martín de Fuentidueña, a Penitent Saint Jerónimo by El Greco and a workshop owned by the Community of Madrid and three tondos with allegories of Goya, La Agricultura, El Comercio and La Industria, deposited in 1932 by the then Ministry of the Navy, in an exchange of works with the museum.
The private deposits include the Pieta de Úbeda, a masterpiece by Sebastiano del Piombo, and La mujer barbuda, by José de Ribera (since 2004), on loan both by the House of Medinaceli. Since 2012, for a period of ten years, the altarpiece of the Gozos de Santa María or altar of the angels, by Jorge Inglés, the first painting Documented Spanish-Flemish Spanish work by a well-known author, deposited by Íñigo de Arteaga y Martín, XIX Duke of Infantado, and since December 2013 three works donated on deposit for five years by the Várez Fisa family: The Prayer in the Garden, by Paolo de San Leocadio, Birth of Christ with a donor, by Fernando Llanos and The Virgin with Child, by Juan de Flandes. from this group the Triptych of the Birth of Jesus, by the Master of the Zarzoso triptych, but the following year it was purchased by the museum from depositors.
Lastly, since 2019, the American organization American Friends of the Prado Museum has been depositing a Risen Christ by Giulio Clovio, inspired by the Cristo de la Minerva by Miguel Ángel, which he received as a donation from the Spanish Pilar Conde. And since 2021 Buste de Femme 43, by Pablo Picasso. This painting was donated to American Friends by the Arango Montull family, and after a deposit period of five years it will be donated to the museum, as was the case with Portrait of Felipe III, attached to Velázquez, possibly preparatory to his missing work The Expulsion of the Moriscos, which American Friends obtained as a donation from art historian William B. Jordan, and which, after having been in storage since 2016, in 2021 it was donated to the Prado.
Another work that was in storage in the past was a major painting by El Greco, The Assumption of the Virgin, the central canvas of the main altarpiece of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. In the XIX century it passed into the hands of the infant Sebastián Gabriel, and, on his death, to his widow, Infanta María Cristina de Borbón y Borbón. After her death, her heirs offered it for sale to the State, and they even left it deposited in the Prado in 1902, but due to the lack of response they ended up withdrawing it in 1904. It finally ended up in the Art Institute of Chicago. The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, by Rubens, on loan from the Carlos de Amberes Foundation between 1978 and 1989. And for eighteen years (1978-1996) the Portrait of Mariano Goya, of disputed attribution to his grandfather, deposited by the Duke of Alburquerque. Between 2004 and 2016 he hung in the Prado rooms the only portrait of Sandro Botticelli preserved in Spain, the Portrait of Michele Marullo Tarcaniota, which belonged to Cambó and was deposited by his only daughter, Helena. Between 2013 and 2018 La Virgen de la Leche, by Pedro Berruguete, was on display. The table was ceded for a period of five years, extendable by the Madrid City Council, then led by Ana Botella, despite the opposition of the municipal conservatives. However, at the end of the initial term the new municipal government team, chaired by Manuela Carmena, he expressed his desire not to renew the deposit. The oil painting Hannibal the Winner Contemplates Italy from the Alps for the First Time, by Goya, was also on deposit for a few years. Initially it was deposited for six years by the Selgas-Fagalde Foundation, since September 2011, although the deposit was later extended, and finally in 2020 the Friends of the Museum Foundation acquired the work and donated it to the Prado.
Locations
Villanueva Building
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The building designed by Juan de Villanueva, in its original conception, is made up of a central body ending in an apse, flanked by two elongated galleries that end in square pavilions, one at each end. Said scheme was extensively modified, first to adapt a building that had been conceived for the Royal Cabinet of Natural History (later the National Museum of Natural Sciences) and the Academy of Sciences to use as an art gallery, and later in the successive extensions that were carried out, and which affected above all the façade facing the church of Los Jerónimos.
The central body stands out in plan and elevation for a large portico made up of six Tuscan columns, an entablature, a cornice and an attic that finishes it off. This façade is the main access, oriented towards the Paseo del Prado, and presents the originality of not having the characteristic triangular pediment on the colonnade, but rather a rectangular one, adorned by a sculptural frieze by Ramón Barba, representing an allegory of the King Ferdinand VII as protector of the sciences, arts and technology. On its rear face, this central section ends in a semicircular or apsidal shape, in such a way that its plane adopts a basilical shape. Originally, this room was two stories high, and at the end of the XIX it was divided into two floors. The lower one was initially dedicated to sculpture, although in 1984 it became the auditorium-assembly hall, according to a project by José María García de Paredes (the same architect who did the National Auditorium), and in the Moneo reform it became a hall (Hall of the Muses -Room 0i-). The upper floor is the current room 12, presided over by Las Meninas.
The two side galleries are two stories high. The lower one with deep and elongated windows that end in a semicircular arch and the upper one with a gallery of Ionic columns (currently there is a third recessed floor, later work).
The north façade presents a portico with two Ionic columns and a smooth entablature above them. This façade corresponds to the second floor of the building. When the building was built, the first floor was, on that side, below ground level, which at that time went down a small slope to Paseo del Prado, until later this unevenness was dismantled to bring it to the same height than the actual floor of the monument. A staircase had to be built for its access (1882).
The south façade (facing Murillo square, in front of the Botanical Garden) is made up of a lintelled opening, giving access to the interior, and a logia or gallery with six Corinthian columns on which an entablature rests.
The interior of the building is vaulted in its central rooms. The vestibule of the north entrance is formed by a rotunda with eight Ionic columns whose vault is decorated with coffered ceilings.
Outside, in front of the main façade, is the statue of Velázquez, the work of the sculptor Aniceto Marinas, with a pedestal by Vicente Lampérez (both authors did their work for free). It has a dedication: Spanish artists, at the initiative of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, 1899. It replaced the Monument to Daoíz y Velarde, by Antonio Solá, and was inaugurated on June 14 of that same year, with the presence of the Queen Regent and Alfonso XIII. It was a very emotional ceremony in which homage and recognition were paid to the great painter Velázquez and to Spanish painting. In addition to the kings attended the event:
- As delegates from France, the painters Jean-Paul Laurens and Carolus-Duran. They deposited crowns with ribbons bearing the French colors and in which they could be read: Au grand Velázquez, les peintres français.
- The ambassadors of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- Edward Poynter, director of the Royal Academy (Royal Academy) and the National Gallery of London.
- Mariano Benlliure, on behalf of the artists of Rome.
- Representation of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Santa Isabel de Hungary and the City of Seville.
- Association of Writers and Artists.
- School of Fine Arts of Madrid, Barcelona and Valladolid.
- Sociedad de Arquitectura, Ayuntamiento, Diputación Provincial y Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid.
There are also, next to its main gates, two other monuments from the XIX century, dedicated to Goya, the work of the sculptor Valencian Mariano Benlliure, and Murillo, by Sabino de Medina, a replica of the one he had made for the Plaza del Museo in Seville, as well as stone medallions representing famous Spanish artists (not only painters, but also sculptors and architects) of various periods, spread over the western façade of the building, the one that overlooks the Paseo del Prado.
Extensions and reforms
Among the most important reforms of the building conceived by Villanueva, it is worth mentioning, in chronological order, that of Narciso Pascual y Colomer, who designed the basilica and the apse of the central body (1853); that of Francisco Jareño, who dismantled the slope through which the north façade was accessed and created a monumental staircase, opening windows in the lower part (1882 and 1885); that of Fernando Arbós y Tremanti, who added a new bay on the east façade on each side of the apse (project 1911-1913, 1914-1921, work directed after his death in 1916 by Amós Salvador); that of Pedro Muguruza, among 1943 and 1946, with a remodeling of the central Gallery and a new staircase for the north façade (which was criticized, since it destroyed the splendid staircase designed by Jareño), with the intention of giving more light to the area of the crypt (in addition, previously, in 1925, he had made the central staircase of the building); and that of Chueca Goitia and Lorente, which added sixteen new rooms by building a new bay on the eastern façade next to that of Arbós (1952-1953 project, 1954-1956 work).
The incidence in the Villanueva Building of the 2007 extension took a few years to be fully noticeable. The transfer of the warehouses and scientific equipment to the Moneo Cube freed up 25 rooms in the main building, which were gradually refurbished. Those responsible for the museum estimated the increase in the number of works on display at 50%, that is, some 450-500, which can be seen in new rooms in the Villanueva building. In October 2009, the new spaces dedicated to the art of the XIX century were opened, from the latest neoclassical to Sorolla, incorporating such currents artistic, often underestimated, to the museum's exhibition discourse. This new display had its next milestone in May 2010, with the rooms of Spanish medieval and century painting XVI prior to El Greco, which occupy the place of the old temporary exhibition halls on the ground floor of the rotunda, in the northern part of the Villanueva building, with an installation that in its architectural part it has been devised by Rafael Moneo himself. In July 2011 another step was taken in the rearrangement of the permanent exhibition: the Central Gallery was reopened with large-format works of Venetian painting of the century XVI (Tiz iano, Tintoretto, Veronese), some Italian masters of early classicism (Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Orazio Gentileschi) and Flemish Baroque painting (Rubens, two of them in collaboration with Snyders and another with van Dyck, although it was also hung a work by van Dyck and later another by Jacob Jordaens). On the other hand, in June 2018 the rooms of the north attic were reopened, where the restoration workshop was formerly located and which, after being remodeled by Gustavo Torner, went on to exhibit the collection of European painting for a few years. from the 18th century. With the rearrangement, seven of its rooms exhibit Flemish Baroque painting, one of them dedicated exclusively to the Torre de la Parada, another to Dutch painting, while the Treasure of the Dolphin is installed in the bull..
Finally, the complete dedication of the Villanueva Building to exhibition uses was completed after the reopening in March 2021 of the basement rooms, refurbished after the transfer of the Treasure of the Dolphin and which now display a module dedicated to the history of the institution; and the inauguration in May 2022 of the installation of sculptural pieces in the North Ionian Gallery.
Jerónimos Building
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Following the project of Rafael Moneo, whose execution began in 2001, in 2007 the largest expansion of the museum in its almost two hundred years of history was completed. This expansion did not imply substantial changes to the Villanueva Building, and was reflected in an extension towards the Jerónimos cloister (the so-called Cubo de Moneo) so that the museum would have enough space for its growing needs. The increase in available area was 15,715 square meters, 50% more. The connection between both buildings is underground (on the Edificio Jerónimos side), as it takes advantage of and covers the gap between Jerónimos (Ruiz de Alarcón street) and Paseo del Prado. The most visible improvements of this intervention affected the attention to the visitor (lobby, bar-restaurant, ticket offices, shop), the extension of the exhibition spaces, with four new rooms for temporary exhibitions on two floors and the fitting out of the cloister as a meeting room. sculpture; a new auditorium and a conference room, as well as other spaces for internal use (Restoration Area —Workshop, Technical Documentation Cabinet and Analysis Laboratory—, warehouses and the Drawings and Prints Cabinet). Its inauguration took place on October 30, 2007, with a temporary exhibition of the most significant pieces from the collection of Spanish painting of the XIX, which had been stored for ten years, since the beginning of the works in the Casón in 1997.
Cason del Buen Retiro
What is known today as Casón is one of the rooms of the old Buen Retiro Palace that have survived to this day. Conceived as the Dancing Hall of said palace, it was badly damaged after the War of Independence, after being occupied and partially destroyed by French troops. The surviving part, already as an autonomous building and separate from what was the old palace, was the object of various reforms throughout the XIXth century. It was then endowed with monumental neoclassical façades, of which the western one, with its spectacular colonnade, was designed by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco (the eastern one, facing Retiro Park, is by the discreet architect Mariano Carderera). During this century the building had various uses, becoming the seat of the Estamento de Próceres (preceding the current Senate).
Already in the XX century, it was used as an exhibition hall, housing several of the most important that were conceived after the hiatus of the Civil War. Once its museum use was decided, it was attached to the Prado in 1971, housing until 1997 the section corresponding to the art of the XIX century, which It had just been extraordinarily increased after the secondment of the funds from that period that had belonged to the extinct Museum of Modern Art, a function very much in keeping with its 19th-century architecture, but of little attraction for visitors, given the separation of the Casón from the Villanueva building, and the general ignorance of Spanish art of that time. This situation was alleviated with the arrival of Guernica and other very representative paintings of the Spanish pictorial avant-garde, such as several by Juan Gris. After the reorganization of the state painting collections and the creation of the Reina Sofía Museum, the Casón was thought of as the ideal space for the temporary exhibitions of the Prado. Finally, those functions and the painting from the 19th century have been transferred to the Moneo extension and the historic building, respectively. After undergoing extensive renovation at the beginning of the XXI century, which included the restoration of the vault painted by Luca Giordano in the central room (Allegory of the Golden Fleece), since 2009 is the headquarters of the Centro de Estudios del Museo, the so-called Prado School, which Following the model of the École du Louvre, it is dedicated to research as well as to the training of specialists in the various fields of Art History. In this way, the Casón currently houses the Library of the Prado Museum, with the reading room installed in the main hall under Giordano's frescoes. It received an extraordinary contribution when King Juan Carlos I donated the full amount of the prize awarded by Mutua Madrileña (€750,000) to the museum and allocated it for this purpose.
The Center opened its doors for the first time on March 9, 2009. It has books on painting, drawing and iconography, sculpture and decorative arts, spanning from the Middle Ages to the XIX. Some of them are exhibition catalogues, and there is also an important antique collection (before 1900), largely thanks to the recent acquisitions of the Cervelló (2003), Madrazo (2006), Correa (2007) and Bordes (2014) libraries.. Other specialized libraries have also been incorporated, such as those of José Álvarez Lopera, Julián Gállego and Félix de Azúa. In total there are more than 70,000 books and 1,000 magazine titles, 200 of them alive. In 1987, the digitization of the collections began, and most can now be accessed through terminals installed in the reading room, and since 2012 also through the new Digital Library section of its website, starting with the complete series of general catalogs of the collection of paintings.
One of the main programs it develops is the annual Lectures, which began in 2009. On the other hand, in 2013 a new activity was implemented, the Prado Museum Seminar, also of an annual nature, designed to complete the work pedagogical with a course dedicated to art theory.
Hall of Realms
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It corresponds to the main wing (north) of the old Buen Retiro Palace, and received its name from having originally housed the Hall of Kingdoms or Ambassadors, where the king received foreign dignitaries. Said space was conceived as a scenographic staging of the Spanish monarchy, with large paintings commissioned by Felipe IV from the main painters of the time, among them Velázquez (The Surrender of Breda and the equestrian portraits of Felipe III, Queen Margarita of Austria, Felipe IV, Queen Isabel de Borbón and Prince Baltasar Carlos), Juan Bautista Maíno (The Recovery of Bahía) and Zurbarán (the series of The Labors of Hercules, Defense of Cádiz against the English and another battle painting now lost).
After the almost total destruction of the palace (see Casón del Buen Retiro) this part of it was destined to house the Army Museum, and heavily modified for that purpose. In the international competition for the expansion of the Prado (1995-1996) the assignment of this building to it was already foreseen, for which the transfer of the Army Museum to the Alcazar of Toledo was ordered. The initial forecast was to tender the work in 2009 or 2010 and carry out the adjudication, execution of works and authorization in the 2010-2012 period, with a budget of forty-two and a half million euros, allocating it both to temporary exhibitions and to exhibiting works. of the Prado's own permanent collection. However, the final estimate of the cost of the necessary works rose to over ninety million and the project, despite being contemplated in the 2009-2012 Action Plan, remained postponed without date. Because of this, the reorganization of the collection was finally executed without having this building, whose function when it was available (to show certain facets of the collections in greater depth or to house temporary exhibitions) remained unspecified.
In February 2015, the General Directorate of Fine Arts decided to de-assign it to the Prado to use it as a photography exhibition hall, although this plan was later discarded, and in October of that same year its definitive transfer was formalized (mutation demanial) to the Prado, which at the beginning of the following year called an international competition for projects for its rehabilitation and museum adaptation, an intervention that will provide the museum with 2,500 m² of exhibition space, 16% more, with a total of 5,800 useful m². The decision of the contest, to which forty-seven teams applied, was made public in November of that year. The winner was the temporary union of companies Foster + Partners-Rubio Arquitectura. The works were expected to begin in 2018, with a cost of forty million euros, 75% covered by the State and the remaining 25% by the museum, to which must be added the two million used in the competition., the tender and the tastings. However, the Government did not grant the budgetary authorization until 2021, which caused the final schedule of works to be set at 2022-2025, with a tender amount (taxes included) of thirty-six million, except for the preliminary works, which the museum began with its own funds in 2019. The award was resolved in May 2022 for thirty-four million eight hundred and seventy-three thousand euros, with an estimated execution period of thirty months from from the end of July of that year, the start date of the works.
Other venues
Aldeasa Building
Located next to the Jerónimos Cloister, it is a contemporary building that housed the offices of the Aldeasa company, until it was acquired in 1996 by the General Directorate of State Heritage, which attached it to the Prado to install the museum's offices, until then located in the south attic of the Villanueva building. In the space gained, eleven new rooms were set up; ten that house works by Goya (among them the cartoons for tapestries) and by his Spanish contemporaries, such as Paret, Luis Meléndez, Vicente López and Maella, and a circular that was initially used as a temporary exhibition hall for drawings, then, after the transfer of the exhibition activities to the Jerónimos Building, it was fitted out as a room for Spanish sketches and cabinet paintings of the XVIII century, and that after the new remodeling of that area inaugurated in July 2015 has been left unused.
The rehabilitation of these rooms as a whole was carried out according to a project by the artist Gustavo Torner, who had been in charge of assembling the museum's rooms since 1980, particularly those in the north attic, in which, as in these, He also commissioned the architectural design.
On the other hand, in the premises of the adjoining building, the one at number 21 Ruiz de Alarcón street, is the headquarters of the Fundación Amigos del Museo.
Marcos Warehouse
In 2012, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports partially assigned the building at number 20 Pérez Ayuso street in the capital to the museum, to install its new frame store there.
Prado Room
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The building in Avila known as Casa de Miguel del Águila, by whom he had it built in 1546, or, more commonly, as Palacio de los Águila, was bequeathed with all its contents to the State by its last private owner, María Luisa Narváez y Macías, V Duchess of Valencia, who died in 1983, for the installation of a museum there. Initially (1992) it was attached to the Museo de Ávila, but through a new collaboration agreement between the then Ministry of Education and Culture and the Junta de Castilla y León, the affiliation was changed, becoming assigned to the Museo del Prado. From this In this way, this old palace of typical stonework from Avila became the first headquarters of the Prado outside Madrid, intended to house the Warehouse Management Center (see section The "Scattered Prado").
The work to adapt it to its new use began in 2003, but it went through many vicissitudes, including a dispute between the Ministry and the winning company that ended with the termination of the contract and the awarding of a new contractor. There were also delays due to the discovery of Roman, medieval and modern archaeological remains, all of which resulted in the works being paralyzed for years. Finally, in 2018 it was decided to resume the project, with the expectation that the works would restart at following year, but allocating it to the new headquarters of the Ávila Museum, while the Prado will only have a space of 300 square meters in a new building within the enclosure, which will house the "Prado Room", in which exhibitions will be held long-term temporary collections from the national art gallery.
Scientific activity
The museum is staffed by researchers, and also collaborates with external researchers on some projects. In addition to raisonne catalogs and catalogs of temporary exhibitions, since 1980 it has published a Bulletin, currently published annually, in which news about the collections is disclosed.
The Prado has a Technical Documentation Office —Gabinete Técnico— and an Analysis Laboratory, in which the works of its collection are examined, in support of conservation/restoration or research projects, and also some pieces from outside to the institution, under collaboration agreements or to study potential acquisitions. In addition, through its Education Area, it organizes highly specialized courses, international congresses and symposiums. The recent creation of the Museum's Study Center reinforces the Prado's performance in this field (see Casón del Buen Retiro section).
Temporary exhibitions
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The Museo Nacional del Prado carries out an intense policy of temporary exhibitions that reviews, commemorates and publicizes the aspects of art history that are most closely related to its own collections, or that complement them. Thus, the Prado has reviewed through exhibitions the great nuclei of interest of its collections, from medieval painting to that of the XIX century, going through exhibitions dedicated to some of its most significant painters such as El Greco (to whom the first monographic exhibition he held, in 1902, was devoted), Murillo, Zurbarán, Ribera, Patinir, Dürer, Titian, Tintoretto, Velázquez, or Goya, in addition to others dedicated to some of the most important collectors related to its history, such as Felipe II, Felipe IV, Cristina of Sweden, Carlos I of England, Felipe V, or Ramón de Errazu. Although there have also been presentations by artists who are unrepresented or scarcely represented despite being prominent names in art history, such as Vermeer, Rembrandt or Turner, as well as panoramic presentations of the collections of other great institutions, such as the Hermit age (2011-2012) or the Hispanic Society (2017).
The total number of visitors to the exhibitions held at its headquarters was 1,296,532 in 2019. The most viewed exhibition in the history of the institution was the anthology dedicated to Bosch in 2016 (589,000 visitors). Although it had traditionally been said that Velázquez's in 1990 had achieved 600,000, the museum later stated that it had been a mistake, since there was no precise accounting at the time, and that the real figure was 500,000. In any case, more than 300,000 catalogs were sold in the Velázquez anthology, which constituted a world record, which left profits with which part of the purchase was paid for the following year from the Still life of game, vegetables and fruit by Sánchez Cotán.
Since April 2007 and in connection with the opening of the expansion of the art gallery, which would take place in November of that year, a new exhibition policy began that assumes the exhibition of works by contemporary artists. Up to now there has already been an exhibition of museum photographs by Thomas Struth, who thus became the first living artist to exhibit at the Prado since the 19th century XIX, there has also been a selection of works by active Spanish artists with the Prado collections as a common reference, a happening by Miquel Barceló accompanied by the choreographer Josef Nadj, one by Cy Twombly inspired by the battle of Lepanto, and one anthology by Francis Bacon, which thus redefine the substantial mission of the Prado in Spanish culture and directly implicate it in the State's action on contemporary art.
This new direction of the Museum has provoked significant criticism by renowned experts in the field of museology and art history. In fact, it has been considered that this new programming could somehow affect Royal Decree 410/1995, of March 17, which marks the limit of museum activity between the two great Spanish national museums of painting and which indicates that artists born after 1881, the year of Picasso's birth, correspond with some exceptions that are specified in that legal document, to the Reina Sofía Museum, whose action would be undermined by that of the Prado.
In 2009, a new modality began within this section with the Invited Works program, micro-exhibitions generally limited to a single but especially outstanding piece. Through it, among others, The Penitent Magdalene with the Lamp, or Magdalena Terff, by Georges de La Tour, on loan from the Louvre Museum, The company of Captain Reijnier Reael (Frans Hals, Rijksmuseum), The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (Sargent, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), The Descent (Caravaggio, Vatican Museums), The Acrobat with the Ball (Picasso, Pushkin Museum), Portrait of a Gentleman (Velázquez, Metropolitan Museum of Art), The Virgin and Child and Angels , from the Diptych of Melun by Jean Fouquet (Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp), the custody of the church of San Ignacio in Bogotá, known as La Lettuce for the green of its 1485 emeralds, a work by José Galaz on loan from the Banco de la República Art Collection, San Juanito, by Miguel Ángel (Casa Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation) and Don Pedro de Alcántara Téllez-Girón y Pacheco, IX Duke of Osuna (Frick Collection, N New York) and The Last Communion of Saint Joseph Calasanz (Order of the Pious Schools of the province of Betania), both by Goya.
There are also concerts, theatrical performances, and projections of feature films and documentaries as a complement to the exhibitions, and there are also conference cycles, in many cases also connected with the temporary exhibitions. It also carries out extensive work to disseminate knowledge of its collections through ambitious educational programs for schools outside and within the Community of Madrid.
Copy Office
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Copyists (formerly called "copying") have always kept the doors of the Prado open since its inception. Given that the approach with which the museum was created was to serve as a learning instrument for painters, even at the beginning they were privileged compared to the general public, who could only enter on Wednesdays, while they and scholars could do so every day. non-holiday days.
In the 1960s there were fifty simultaneously, but since then, in order to avoid inconvenience to visitors, their number has been limited to sixteen. For the same reason, there are works for which permits are not granted copies: Las meninas, Las majas and The Garden of Earthly Delights, as well as those that are hung next to a corner or a door In addition, the copies, for whose execution a period of between six and seven weeks is generally granted, for security reasons must differ by at least five centimeters on each side with respect to the original. Among the most demanded authors Murillo, Velázquez, Goya, El Greco and Rubens appear.
Some of the painters who have copied works in the museum have become illustrious artists, such as Courbet, Franz von Lenbach, Sargent, Sorolla, Picasso, Sonia Delaunay, or Fortuny, of whom the Prado He owns two copies that he made in his rooms of Menipo by Velázquez and a San Andrés (P01078) by Ribera.
Economic and visitor data
In 2019, expenses amounted to 44.97 million euros. For its part, income was 49.56 million. Of these, 22.67 came from ticket sales (historic record) and 16.18 from the state contribution.
| Year | Visitors |
| 2011 | 2 940 240 |
| 2012 | 2 835 073  |
| 2013 | 2 406 170 |
| 2014 | 2 536 844  |
| 2015 | 2 696 666 |
| 2016 | 3 033 754 |
| 2017 | 2 824 404 |
| 2018 | 2 892 937 |
| 2019 | 3 203 417 (historic record)
|
| 2020 | 852 161 |
| 2021 | 1 126 641 |
| 2022 | 2 427 718 |
Other data
- In the museum is The Glory, painted by Titian for Charles V, and that the emperor led to his retreat at the monastery of Yuste in Cáceres, Extremadura, asking to contemplate it before expiry. Next to her he carried other works of the Venetian who are also today in the Prado: Portrait of the Empress, the Ecce Homo Catalog number P437, P42 (attributed), Painful with open hands and the Painful with closed handsapart from a painting not belonging to the Museum, Painful Michel Coxcie.
- The equestrian Portrait of Queen Margarita, Velázquez and her workshop is also kept, showing the rich jewellery, formed by two of the most famous jewels of the Crown Jewelry of Spain: the pearl called Peregrine (which is currently believed to be identified by some with which Elizabeth Taylor was in possession) and the diamond The Pond, carved possibly by Jacopo Nizzolo da Trezzo (also known in Spain as Jacometrezo).
- In its beginnings, the Museum opened just two or three days a week, and closed whenever it rained, it is supposed to avoid massifications and dirt. On the other hand, for a while the sculpture rooms were not properly paved, and the dust was to be removed by watering the ground, although it was soon staged and subsequently installed wooden flooring in almost all rooms. For safety issues, wood was replaced by marble after the 1930s.
- The Lady of Elche is the property of the Prado (number of catalogue E433), found at the National Archaeological Museum in condition of deposit. It was obtained in 1941 by an exchange of works with the Government of Vichy of the Marshal Pétain, an agreement through which France agreed to attend to the claims that Spain had been planning for decades and that also included the Immaculate Conception of the Venerables or Immaculate of Soult (by the French Marshal who stole it) of Murillo, which was like the remains of the Museum of the Louvre, As compensation a portrait of Mariana of Austria of Velázquez was given to France, of which the Prado had another almost identical version (the version considered to be of lower quality was transferred, which for some is even simply a copy of the workshop), and a work by the Greco of the Museum of Santa Cruz de Toledo. He stayed in the Prado for 30 years, from returning to Spain until in 1971 he was transferred to the National Archaeological Museum (M.A. N.)
- In March 2021 the number of women of whom the Prado had paintings was thirty-two, a figure of seventy and one if the total typologies of its inventory of artistic goods are reported.
Acknowledgments
In 2019 he received the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities. That same year, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando awarded him its Medal of Honor. Also in 2019, the Museum's Restoration Area was awarded with the National Prize for Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Assets.