Prado Museum, Madrid

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This museum is world famous and we intended to visit until we saw the length of the queues outside!!! I was not waiting in that not even for Goya and Velasquez. The area round about is well worth visiting. I liked the statues around the museum.

The Museo del Prado, the art collection of the Spanish Royal Family is one of the very best overall collections of European art. The collection is especially strong in the Spanish painters, especially Velasquez (my favorite) and Goya. I also loved the great collection of Titian paintings they had.

The collection is especially interesting in that it reflects the origins of the royal family as well. Carlos V was Holy Roman emperor and King of a much more important Spain that was suddenly a European and world power. Carlos was the son of Juana of Castile (daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella- the Reyes Catolicos) and Phillip the Handsome (Hapsburg house, duke of Burgundy from Flanders). You see the increasing influence and presence of the artists from the Low Countries in the collection from this period.

One of the really nice things about the Prado,other than the very high level of quality of its exhibits, is that the museum itself is not as enormous as the Louvre or British Museum. You can go through it at a relaxed pace and see most if not all of it without having to spend days or weeks there.

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The Museum presents the following collections:

The Spanish Collection, The Flemish Collection,The Italian Collection.

The Prado also holds important collections from the French, Dutch, German and British schools, as well as sculpture, prints, drawings and coins. All told, the Prado holds over 9,000 paintings, 7,000 prints and drawings and nearly 1,000 coins. The collection is so vast that only 1,500 works can be displayed on exhibit with the remainder of the collection rotated.

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The Prado Museum is renowned as being the largest art gallery in the world.
It also exhibits sculptures, drawings, coins and other works of arts, but it is undoubtedly its large collection of paintings which has given it fame worldwide.
It houses more than 8,600 paintings, of which they exhibit less than 2,000 because of lack of space available.
Many museums throughout the world have less artistic riches in their halls than the Prado Museum has in storage.

The present day art gallery comes from the royal collections of the old Trinidad Museum, as well as acquisitions, donations and bequests.

Its history began during the reign of Charles III, when he tried to create a single art collection under one roof.
But it was not until the reign of Fernando VII when the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture was created, on 19th November 1819.
The kings death caused inheritance problems and endangered the unity of the collection, but with the disappearance of the monarchy in Spain the museum became national property and became known as the Prado National Museum.

From then to this date, the works of art have survived several challenges and were transferred several times during the Spanish Civil War, ending up in the Swiss city of Geneva and being returned to Madrid during the Second World War.

Nowadays, its treasures are exhibited in two adjacent buildings : the Villanueva Building where the majority of the works are housed, and the Cason del Buen Retiro.

When to come?

Tuesdays to Saturdays: 9am-7pm
Sundays, holidays, 24th and 31st december: 9am-2pm
Mondays: closed
Closed 1st January, good Friday, 1st May, 25th December

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One might be tempted to compare the famous MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO with the THYSSEN BORNEMISZA collection on the other side of the same avenue. I visited both museums several times and must say that my aesthetic pleasure was much greater each time at the Thyssen-Bornemisza than at the Prado Museum.
I confess that I am not a fan of the Spanish school with its painters such as El Greco, Ribalta, Ribera, Murillo, or Zurbaran. My taste or judgement has probably been "spoiled" by having grown up surrounded by Flemish and Dutch paintings.
Fortunately for those who might share my taste, the Prado has a large section of Flemish painters (1000 paintings) including Van de Weyden, Bosch ("the Garden of Delights") and Rubens and 200 works from Dutch painters.
Most spectacular is Jerome Bosch whose pictures have always fascinated viewers; Philip II, king of Spain, was a major art collector who liked the bizarre fantasies of this Netherlandish master.

If in his time Bosch was regarded as the inventor of monsters and chimeras, today his paintings still hold as an intriguing attraction reflecting mysterious practices of the Middle Ages.

I was surprised during my last visit at the Prado to notice that guides stopped their groups in front of his famous triptych " The Garden of the Delights " to explain at length its symbolism, while in previous years they would spend more time on Velazquez and other painters of the Spanish school.
Jerome Bosch seems a rising star in the world of the fans of the esotericism, the mysteries and the sects. Should we see here a collateral effect of the "Da Vinci Code" esoteric passion?

With the help of Google Earth it is now possible to see major works of the Prado such as the Garden of Delights in detail and high resolution. Fantastic!

On the other side of the Paseo del Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum was enlarged in June 2004 to display more than 200 paintings collected by Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. The collection of the Baroness is a natural continuation of the historical Thyssen-Bornemisza collection (located in Madrid since 1992) and includes 17th century Dutch painting, 19th century landscape, North American painting, Impressionism, Post-impressionism and Avant-Garde movements. It is a real pleasure to visit the new galleries which complement the historical collection. Quality and variety are the characteristics of this museum which now belongs among the Europe’s best museums of paintings.

To conclude: a visit to Madrid must include both museums.

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One of Madrid's famous art museums and part of the "Triangle of Culture" together with Thyssen-Bornemisza and Reina Sofia museums. It's not as big as the Louvre but it has a good collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures, including an interesting exhibition of Middle Eastern carpets, pottery, paintings, etc.

Minus points for not allowing visitors to take pictures inside the museum, even without flash (although I found out after I took the last 2 pictures of this tip).

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This popular museum is really that very interesting to see. This is an art Museum housing the world's richest and most comprehensive collection of Spanish painting, Italian and Flemish and other masterpieces of other schools of European paintings. Has a Neo-classical style of building designed by Architect Juan de la Villanueva as commisioned by Charles III in 1785. During the war of Napoleon's time, the costruction was stopped and was completed in 1819 under Ferdinand VII. Then was opened to the public as the Royal Museum of Painting. In 1868, it became the National Museum of Prado.

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When I went to the Prado Museum I didn't know what to expect. I had ofcourse heard about it before I went to Madrid but since I'm not a devoted art lover you'll never know.

It really blew my mind, it was so fantastic! I got the audiotour of the place which guided me throgh all the most important paintings and that was fantastic. I spend 4 hours with just the audiotour and I really have to go back and look it all over again because my mind was just so full of impressions so I had to go out of there.