Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is a world class museum and art gallery located in Madrid, Spain.
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| Puerta de Velázquez, the Museo del Prado, Madrid |
Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture, the Museum also has important collections of more than 5,000 drawings, 2,000 prints, 1,000 coins and medals, and almost 2,000 decorative objects and works of art. Sculpture is represented by more than 700 works and by a smaller number of sculptural fragments. The superb picture gallery consisting of 8,600 paintings is the factor which lends the Museum its world class status. Works by Velazquez, Goya, Botticelli, El Greco, Rubens, and other notable artists are on display in the Museum. The most famous work on display at the Museum is "Las Meninas" by Velazquez.
The Museo del Prado is one of the buildings constructed during the reign of Charles III as part of a grandiose building scheme designed to bestow upon Madrid a monumental urban space. This "prado" (meaning meadow in Spanish) gave its name to the area (Salón del Prado, later Paseo del Prado), and later still to the Museum itself upon nationalisation. Work on the building stopped between the conclusion of Charles III's reign and during the Spanish War of Independence and was only initiated again during reign of Charles III's grandson, Ferdinand VII. The structure was used as headquarters for the cavalry and a gunpowder-store for the Napoleonic troops based in Madrid during the War of Independence. Upon the deposition of Isabel II in 1868, the Museum was nationalised and acquired the new name of Museo del Prado. The building housed the royal collection of arts: it rapidly proved too small. The first enlargement to the Museum took place in 1918. The most recent enlargement was the incorporation of two nearby buildings into the institutional structure of the Museum, the Casón del Buen Retiro in 1971, and the Palacio de Villahermosa (now the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum) in 1985.
During the Spanish Civil War, upon the recommendation of the League of Nations the Museum staff removed three hundred and fifty-three paintings, one hundred and sixty-eight drawings and the Dauphin's Treasure and sent the art to Valencia, then later to Gerona and finally to Geneva. The art had to be returned across French territory in night trains to the Museum upon the commencement of World War II.
One of the promenade entrances to the Prado is dominated by a bronze statue of Velasquez (see picture above).