Location: Museo Thyssen-
Bornemisza
Tel. 91- 369 01 51
Subway: Banco de Espana, Sevilla
Buses: 1,2,5,9,14,15,20
Open: 10 am- 7 pm Tue- Sun (Jul- Aug 10 am- midnight Tue- Sun)
www.museothyssen.org
Prado Museum or Museo del Prado houses Europe's significant art masterpieces that cover historic period from 14th to 20th century as well as examples of ancient art. This magnificent Prado Museum exhibits masterpieces of Titian, Goya and Van Gogh. Others include Dutch and Flemish paintings. Some of the most favorite include Jan van Eyck's The Annunciation (c. 1435- 41), Petrus Christuts’s Our Lady of the Dry Tree (c. 1450) and Peter Paul Rubens The Toilet of Venus (c.1690). The first contribution to the collection of Prado Museum (Museo del Prado) was made by king Charles V of Habsburg. Spanish monarch was an avid collection who gathered some of the best examples of European art. Prado Museum was largely expanded in the 1920’s by Baron Heinrich Thyssen- Bornmisza and continued by his son Hans Heinrich.
Prado Museum is one of the most important landmarks in Madrid. Its vast collection is truly impressive even by European standards. Keep at least 2-3 hours to get an idea about its size and masterpieces.
The Prado Museum in Madrid (Spain), is one of the
most important in the world, as well as one of the most visited (the
eighteenth in 2013 among art museums). Singularly rich in paintings
by European masters from the 16th to the 19th centuries, according
to the historian of art and hispanist Jonathan Brown, "few would
dare to question that it is the most important museum in the world
in European painting".
Its main attraction is the large presence of Velázquez , El Greco ,
Goya (artist most widely represented in the museum), Titian , Rubens
and Bosch , of having the best and most extensive collections that
exist worldwide , to which must be added prominent groups of
important authors such as Murillo , Ribera , Zurbarán , Fra Angelico
, Rafael , Veronese , Tintoretto , Patinir , Van Dyck and Poussin ,
to name but a few of the most relevant.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez , former director of the institution, said
that "represents in the eyes of the world the most significant of
our culture and the most brilliant and lasting of our history."
The inventory of artistic assets comprised, as of February 2017,
more than 35,000 objects, broken down into 8045 paintings, 9561
drawings, 5973 prints and 34 stamping dies, 971 sculptures (in
addition to 154 fragments), 1189 pieces of decorative arts, 38
weapons and armor, 2155 medals and coins, over 15,000 photographs, 4
books and 155 maps.
Due to endemic limitations of space, the museum exhibited a
selection of works of the highest quality (about 900), for what was
defined as "the highest concentration of masterpieces per square
meter". With the extension of Rafael Moneo , it was foreseen that
the exposed selection would grow by 50%, with some 450 more works.
In addition, in 2018 the rooms of the north penthouse have been
reopened, after which the total of exposed pieces is around 1700,
and when the Hall of Kingdoms is rehabilitated , 250 to 300 more
paintings will be hung there.
Like other major European museums, such as the Louvre in Paris and
the Uffizi in Florence , the Prado owes its origin to the
collector's hobby of the ruling dynasties over several centuries. It
reflects the personal tastes of the Spanish kings and their network
of alliances and political enmities, making it an asymmetric
collection, unsurpassed in certain artists and styles, and limited
in others. Only since the twentieth century is sought, with unequal
results, solve the most notorious absences.
The Prado is not an encyclopedic museum in the style of the Louvre
Museum, the Hermitage , the Metropolitan , the National Gallery in
London , or even (on a much smaller scale) the neighboring
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which have works from virtually all
schools and periods. On the contrary, it is an intense and
distinguished collection, formed essentially by a few art-loving
kings, where many works were created on request. The fund coming
from the Royal Collection has been complemented by later
contributions, which have barely modified its initial profile,
since, unlike the usual in the national art galleries of other
countries, the efforts, rather than to complete the faults, have
gone directed to reinforce the essential core.
Many experts consider it a collection "of painters admired by
painters", inexhaustible teaching for new generations of artists,
from Manet , Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec , who visited the museum in
the 19th century, to Picasso , Matisse , Dalí , Francis Bacon and
Antonio Saura , who said: «This museum is not the most extensive,
but it is the most intense».
The pictorial schools of Spain , Flanders and Italy (especially
Venice ) have the leading role in the Prado, followed by the French
fund , more limited although with good examples of Nicolas Poussin
and Claudio de Lorena . The German painting has a discontinuous
repertoire, with four masterpieces of Dürer and multiple portraits
Mengs main treasures. Along with the brief repertoire of British
painting , circumscribed almost to the portrait genre, we must
mention the Dutch painting, a section not too wide but that includes
Rembrandt .
Although lesser known, 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 - Romans stand out .
Together with the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofía
National Art Center Museum , the Museo Nacional del Prado forms the
so - called Art Triangle , a mecca for many tourists from around the
world. This area is enriched by other nearby institutions: the
National Archaeological Museum , the National Museum of Decorative
Arts , the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and other
small museums.
The Prado is governed by a director (currently Miguel Falomir , in
office since 2017), assisted by the Royal Board of the Museum,
chaired since 2012 by the lawyer, diplomat and politician José Pedro
Pérez-Llorca .