One of the main museums in Madrid is the Prado Museum. Together with the nearby Reina Sofia Art Center and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, it forms the Golden Triangle of Art of Madrid (a UNESCO Heritage Site since 2021). At the same time, the Paseo del Prado, along with the Buen Retiro Park and the Barrio de los Jeronimos that contains them, is a UNESCO cultural landscape, which on the occasion of this recognition was named Paisaje de la Luz.
- The Origin of the Prado Collection
- Prado Museum Works
- Fra Angelico – Annunciation (1425-1428)
- Botticelli – Scenes from Nastagio degli Onesti (1483)
- Titian – The Worship of Venus (1518-1519)
- Titian – Venus and Adonis (1554)
- Caravaggio – David Victorious over Goliath (circa 1600)
- El Greco – The Adoration of the Shepherds (1612-1614)
- Rubens – The Three Graces (1630-1635)
- Velazquez – Las Meninas (1656)
- Goya – Nude Maja and Clothed Maja (1800-1808)
- Goya – The Execution (1814)
- Prado Museum Hours
- Prado Museum Tickets
The Prado’s heritage includes more than 21,000 works, including paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. About 1,300 of these, mostly paintings, are currently on display. To literally avoid an overdose of art, this article offers a visit proposal through ten masterpieces on display to grasp the essence of the collection and ensure you don’t miss the most significant works. You can also find on FullTravel some tips on how to get around Madrid cheaply and how to visit the Spanish capital in two days.
The Origin of the Prado Collection
The building hosting the Prado Museum dates back to 1785 and was originally intended for a natural history collection. In 1819, at the initiative of King Ferdinand VII and his wife Isabella of Braganza, it was transformed into a Museum of Painting and Sculpture. The original nucleus of the collection was the rich art collection belonging to the royal family, then consisting of 1,510 works.
Ferdinand VII’s choice aligns with what was happening in other states during the same period (for example, in France with the creation of the Louvre): displaying royal collections to the public meant sharing with the people an enormous cultural heritage, for purposes of study or simple enjoyment. Specifically for the Prado, the royal house also wanted to demonstrate to the world the value of Spanish artists, generally less known than other European artists.
Some Masters, such as Velazquez, Titian, Rubens, and Goya, are present with a significant number of works, as they worked directly with the Spanish court. The collection of Goya’s works at the Prado, in particular, is the most important worldwide in quantity and quality. Paintings by other artists, especially Italians and Flemish, were collected by royal family members over the centuries. A special case is El Greco, who, despite not being especially patronized by the court, is justly present with a significant number of works given his importance in the Spanish cultural scene.
Prado Museum Works
The Annunciation was the central scene of an altarpiece from the Convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, where Fra Angelico served as a friar and for whom the painter also created other works.
The painting is divided into two parts: on the left, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden; on the right, the angel delivers the good news to Mary, who is simultaneously struck by divine light. The narrative represents the passage from sin to redemption, with Adam and Eve destined for eternal damnation, whose only salvation is the birth of Christ, made possible by Mary. The two moments are clearly distinct thanks also to their very different settings. The Garden of Eden is lush and painted with great detail. Notable are a palm tree and red roses, symbols respectively of martyrdom and the Passion. Mary is instead set in an architectural space, a Renaissance porch that is also the perspective element of the composition.
The three panels displayed at the Prado are part of a cycle of four paintings commissioned from Botticelli as a wedding gift for the Florentine couple Giannozzo Pucci and Lucrezia Bini. The story of Nastagio degli Onesti is told in Boccaccio’s Decameron and was chosen to characterize a wedding gift because it is a love story with a happy ending. Nastagio is rejected by the woman he loves and flees to a forest outside Ravenna, where he witnesses the infernal punishment inflicted on another woman who had rejected her suitor. As this violent scene repeats every Friday, Nastagio invites the woman who rejected him and her family to dinner in the forest. When the guests see the woman being chased and torn apart by ferocious dogs before their eyes, the girl changes her mind and agrees to the marriage. The missing panel, kept in a private collection, depicts the couple’s wedding banquet.
This work is attributed to Botticelli, but scholars agree that the Master designed the narrative of the cycle and painted some characters, but collaborated with two other artists for overall execution.
This painting was commissioned by Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, for his Camerino d’Alabastro, a private room he wanted decorated with mythological scenes. For the Camerino paintings, Alfonso d’Este engaged the best painters of the time: Titian, Giovanni Bellini, Dosso Dossi, Michelangelo (who did not deliver his work), Raphael, and Fra Bartolomeo, who died before completing their works, leaving only sketches. Titian, who had already painted Bacchus and Ariadne (kept at the National Gallery in London) and The Bacchanal of the Andrii (displayed at the Prado) for this same room, had to develop this work based on Fra Bartolomeo’s sketches.
The subject and source were chosen directly by Alfonso d’Este and are inspired by an annual celebration during which offerings were made to the statues of Venus. Compared to Fra Bartolomeo’s drawing, Titian overturns the composition, placing Venus’s statue at the far right and dedicating the central space entirely to a crowd of cupids playing, gathering peaches, and embracing.
From the Camerino d’Alabastro, besides Titian’s two works, one can also admire at the Prado The Arrival of the Trojans at the Strophades Islands by Dosso Dossi.
Venus and Adonis was a very popular subject, mainly due to the nudity of Venus. In particular, Titian unusually chose to paint the goddess with her buttocks pressed due to the seated position, adding further eroticism to the image.
Titian painted about thirty versions of Venus and Adonis. The one kept at the Prado is the oldest surviving version. It was commissioned by Philip II and delivered to him in London in 1554. Correspondence between the painter and the sovereign reveals that Titian intended this painting to be displayed alongside Danae, where Venus nude appeared facing forward. In this way, the artist wanted to demonstrate how painting, like sculpture, can explore different perspectives.
The myth depicted does not exactly correspond to Ovid’s version. As in other works, Titian performed an exceptional intellectual integration and adaptation of classical sources.
The painting represents the well-known biblical episode of young David who defeats the giant Goliath by first striking him with a sling stone and then decapitating him. Caravaggio was the master of light and chiaroscuro, and this work is proof of his remarkable skill. The light captures the physical gesture of the struggle, illuminating the hero’s muscular arm and leg and Goliath’s shoulders, about to be decapitated. The gesture of pulling the hair to show Goliath’s face is not recorded in the Bible but was added by the painter for narrative purposes.
This painting is considered El Greco’s last work. He painted it to be placed above his tomb in the Convent of Santo Domingo El Antiguo in Toledo. Therefore, among the shepherds appear the self-portrait of the painter and his son Jorge Manuel.
The chosen subject was seen as a metaphor for resurrection and eternity. The figures’ forms are distorted, a common feature of El Greco’s late works. The contrasts between light and shadows are particularly emphasized to increase the sense of drama. The main light source is the Baby Jesus, with obvious symbolic meanings.
Due to his tormented style and strong influence of religious themes, El Greco was only appreciated long after his death. He is rightly considered a precursor of expressionism.
The Prado Museum owns about ninety paintings by Rubens. The artist was highly valued by King Philip IV, who commissioned numerous works to decorate the royal residences in Madrid.
The famous painting of The Three Graces, however, remained the artist’s property and was acquired by the king only after Rubens’ death. According to myth, the Graces were part of Aphrodite’s circle and represented the values of love, beauty, and sensuality. For this reason, Rubens probably painted the work for personal use, to celebrate the joys of his new life after his second marriage.
Velazquez was the court portraitist of Spain for nearly forty years, under Philip IV. Las Meninas represents the pinnacle of his career, both technically and conceptually.
The scene is set in a room of the Alcazar and depicts Infanta Margaret surrounded by her entourage of ladies-in-waiting and servants. Velazquez appears in the background, busy painting. The mirror reflects the image of Margaret’s parents, Philip IV and Mariana of Austria.
The complexity of the composition makes it especially enigmatic. The most accredited interpretation is that Velazquez wanted to depict, through the genre that made him famous (portraiture), his professional status. Painters in Spain were considered more as artisans than as artists, but Velazquez had earned a prominent role at court, also becoming curator of the royal painting collection. So he symbolically portrays himself, in his only known self-portrait, inside the Alcazar, surrounded by the royal family, demonstrating the peak of his career.
The use of a reflected image in the mirror is not new to the painter; just think of the face in the famous Rokeby Venus. But in this case, there might also be a reference to a topical theme of that period, that of illusion, brought to public attention by Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
The story of these two paintings, generally exhibited side by side, is quite controversial. Both were owned by Manuel de Godoy, Spanish Secretary of State at the end of the 18th century. Nude Maja is recorded in an inventory from 1800 and was kept in a private room of de Godoy’s residence along with other nudes, including the famous Rokeby Venus by Velazquez, now exhibited at the National Gallery in London.
Clothed Maja was painted a few years later, possibly to remedy an Inquisition investigation that, after discovering the nude version, put de Godoy and Goya on trial. Fortunately, there were no serious consequences, since the Inquisition tribunal had basically lost its power at that time. The paintings were confiscated, and Goya saved himself by saying he had been inspired by Titian’s mythological nudes and the Rokeby Venus.
Actually, the Maja is not a mythological character but a common person, as shown by the simple clothes in the second version. It is probably a portrait of one of Manuel de Godoy’s mistresses.
Goya’s famous painting, also known as The Third of May 1808, changed the perception of war in art. It depicts the execution of some members of the people who had joined the Spanish resistance against the Napoleonic troops. There is a stark contrast between the order-aligned firing squad, whose faces we do not see, and the disorderly mass of victims. On the left lie the bodies already executed (one even shows the coup de grace mark on the forehead). In the center are those about to be shot, including the figure with arms wide open in a gesture of surrender. Finally, on the right, another indistinct mass of people awaits their turn to be executed.
Previously, war had always been represented with an epic aura. Despite the presence of graphic depictions of victims, artists tended to use the style of grand history painting. In Goya’s Execution, however, there is nothing heroic or glorious. The victims are ordinary people, the atmosphere is of pure despair, and the execution is mechanical and repetitive.
This work by Goya, for its innovative narrative mode, influenced some later paintings, above all Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian and Picasso’s Guernica and Massacre in Korea.
Prado Museum Hours
- Regular opening hours:
Monday to Saturday – 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
Sundays and holidays – 10:00 am to 7:00 pm
Note: The Prado Museum is closed on January 1, May 1, and December 25. - Limited opening hours: On January 6, December 24, and December 31, the Prado Museum will be open from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
- Free entry: visitors can enjoy free admission to the Prado Museum on the following days:
Monday to Saturday – from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Sundays and holidays – from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Access to the museum is allowed up to 45 minutes before closing time.
Prado Museum Tickets
