Page 11 - Contemporary Art and Old Masters

The Museo del Prado Room 49, Italian painting galleries, The Cardinal,
Raphael©Museo Nacional del Prado

The Museo del Prado was founded by Ferdinand VII and notable in recent years are the donation of the Várez Fisa
opened to the public in 1819. Installed in the building collection (2013), which has enriched and completed the
designed by Juan de Villanueva in 1785 to house the Natural Prado’s holdings of Spanish medieval and Renaissance art;
History Collection, the Royal Museum, as it was then called, the acquisition of the Juan Bordes Library (2014), one of
became the first art museum in Spain and one of the the most important worldwide for the study of the human
earliest public museums in Europe. figure; the Plácido Arango donation, which remains with the
The Prado’s collection encompasses painting from the owner for lifetime use and comprises 25 works by Spanish
12th to the early 20th centuries, in addition to an extensive painters and European artists working in Spain between the
collection of classical sculpture, the decorative arts, prints, 16th and 19th centuries; and the acquisition of The Virgin of
drawings and photographs. The large number of works by the Pomegranate from the Alba family collection, together
Velázquez, Goya and Rubens makes the Museum’s holdings with the personal donation made by the Duke of Alba,
of these three artists the largest and finest in the world. Carlos Fitz-James Stuart y Martínez de Irujo, of The Funeral
Similarly, the Prado possesses the largest collection of of Saint Anthony Abbot, both by Fra Angelico (2016), which
works on paper by Goya. have made the Museum an international reference point for
Among the great masterpieces of European painting to the study of that Florentine artist.
be seen in the Museum are The Descent from the Cross The Prado’s numerous activities and the size of the
by Rogier van der Weyden, The Garden of Earthly Delights collection have meant that the building has been
by Jheronimus Bosch, The Nobleman with his Hand on his extended on various occasions over the course of
Chest by El Greco, Las Meninas by Velázquez, and The its history. Following the opening of the most recent
Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808 by Goya. extension visitor figures progressively rose to the 2.7
The Museo del Prado’s collection continues to grow million achieved for the first time in 2007 then reached a
through annual acquisitions and donations. Particularly new record of 3,033,754 visitors in 2016.

WORLD of ART 11