Prado

Prado , Spanish national museum of painting and sculpture, in Madrid, one of the finest in Europe. Situated on the Paseo del Prado, it was begun by the architect Juan de Villanueva in 1785 for Charles III, as a museum of natural history, and finished under his grandson, Ferdinand VII; the inaugural ceremony took place and the museum was opened to the public in 1819, when the collection consisted entirely of just over 1,500 Spanish paintings. The collection was expanded significantly in the 16th cent. under Charles V and was enlarged under the succeeding Hapsburg and Bourbon kings. It continued to be maintained by the royal family and was called the Royal Museum until 1868, when it became national property. The Prado's collection includes more than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints. The Spanish, Flemish, and Venetian schools are particularly well represented. The collection includes masterpieces by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Durer, Mantegna, van der Weyden, Rubens, Van Dyck, Dürer, Brueghel, Bosch, and many others. In addition, the works of Velázquez, El Greco, Ribera, and Goya can be seen nowhere else to such advantage. A large new extension to the museum, designed by Rafael Moneo , opened in 2007.

Bibliography: See H. B. Wehle, Great Paintings from the Prado Museum (1963); F. V. Garin Llombart, Treasures of the Prado (1998); S Alcolea, ed., The Prado Museum (2002); A. E. Sanchez, The Prado (2d ed., 2006).

Prado the Spanish national art gallery in Madrid, established in 1818. The name came originally from Spanish Prado (from Latin pratum ‘meadow’), the proper name of the public park of Madrid.

Prado (Museo Nacional del Prado), Madrid. Spain's national museum of art, opened to the public in 1819. ‘Prado’ is Spanish for ‘meadow’ and the museum takes its name from a nearby tree-lined walk called the Paseo del Prado. The building, one of the finest examples of Spanish Neoclassical architecture, was designed by Juan de Villanueva and begun in 1787. It was originally intended to house an academy of sciences and a museum of natural history, but before it opened it was pillaged by the invading French army in 1808. After the restoration of the Spanish monarchy, Ferdinand VII had the building repaired and decided to use it as an art gallery rather than for scientific purposes. It became national property after Queen Isabella II was deposed in 1868. The major part of the collection derives from the royal collections made in the course of three centuries by the Habsburg and Bourbon monarchs of Spain, who included some of the most discriminating and lavish patrons in Europe, most notably Philip II and Philip IV. It is not comprehensive in its coverage but is supremely rich in certain areas. Above all, it contains what is far and away the world's greatest collection of Spanish painting, with about 50 pictures by Velázquez (roughly half his surviving output) and more than 100 by Goya. It has more pictures by Bosch, Rubens, and Titian than any other collection in the world, and among the other artists who are particularly well represented are van Dyck, Tintoretto, and Veronese.