The Prado Museum in Madrid is, without a doubt, a must-see. You don’t have to be an art connoisseur or an art lover (especially painting) to admire this unique place.

The Museo Nacional del Prado’s collections offer us the opportunity to see some of the greatest works of art in the history of mankind. For more than a dozen years it has been one of the most visited museums in the world. It contains the most beautiful and sometimes the most important works by artists such as Velázquez, Goya, El Greco, Rubens, Titian, Raphael Santi, Hieronim Bosch, Hans Memling and many other representatives of the Spanish, Italian, Flemish, German, French and Dutch Renaissance, etc. Most of the ancient paintings and sculptures belong to the royal collection assembled at the end of the 16th and 20th centuries.

The Prado Museum is housed in the 18th century classicist Edificio Villanueva on the Paseo del Prado, and at its entrances there are monuments to the most prominent Spanish painters: Velázquez and Goya. It was established in 1785 and put into public use in 1819. Initially, its walls housed 1,510 works of art, although visitors could only see 311 selected exhibits. The Prado Museum currently houses around 8,000 paintings, 1,000 sculptures, 4,800 copper engravings, 8,200 prints and countless sculptures, decorative arts and historical documents.

More than 3,100 diverse works of art are on loan to third parties or in the process of being renovated in the museum’s conservatory. It is practically impossible to see all the exhibits in one day, so the best solution is to follow one of the three signposted routes for visitors, passing through the rooms with the most important paintings.

Below we present the characteristics of the selected collections at the Prado Museum and useful information for those who wish to visit them.

Because of its richness and the length of the period in which it was created, it was divided into five separate sections.

The first concerns painting from the Romanesque, Gothic and early Renaissance periods. In addition to medieval altar paintings, it is made up of religious paintings by Spanish court artists such as Bartolomé Bermejo, Juan de Flandes and Pedro Berruguete.

The second section of the museum is devoted to El Greco and Spanish Renaissance painting. The Greek artist Dominikos Theotokopulos, who died in Toledo in 1614 (one of his works, the painting Ecstasy of Saint Francis, is represented in the Prado Museum with some of his most valuable paintings. Here we can see paintings by him such as “Holy Trinity”, “Annunciation”, “Nobleman with his hand on his chest”, “Pentecost” and “Resurrection”.

The third section is Spanish Baroque paintings. Of less than fifty paintings, a third came from the brush of Diego Velázquez. These are the artist’s most famous works, including “Court Maidens”, “Vulcan’s Forge”, “The Surrender of Breda”, “Triumph of Bacchus”, “Adoration of the Magi” and numerous portraits of representatives of the Spanish court in the first half of the 17th century.

This is perhaps the most interesting part of the museum’s collections, which are complemented by paintings by such masters of the golden age of Spanish art, the so-called Golden Age, as José de Ribera (“The Martyrdom of St. Philip”, “Isaac and Jacob”, “Holy Trinity”, “Jacob’s Dream”, “The Old Usurer”), Alonso Cano (“Christ supported by an Angel”, “King of Spain”, “Crucifixion”, “Virgin and Child”). The Prado Museum also has many great works by artists belonging to the Madrid School of this period: Fray Juan Ricci, Antonio de Pereda, Francisco de Herrera el Mozo and Claudio Coello. Among the representatives of the Sevillian school, Juan de Valdés Leal stands out.

The fourth group within the Spanish painting collection are the works of the Prado Museum’s most numerous artist, Goya and 18th century art. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes is the author of more than 140 paintings and numerous graphics on display here. From the top we can see, among others, “Maja desnuda”, “Maja vestida”, “Saturno devorando a sus propios hijos”, “Cristo en la cruz”, “Paraguas”, “Coloso”, “Familia de Carlos IV”, “El fusilamiento de los insurgentes madrileños”, “El Lechera de Burdeos” and portraits from the period in which he was the main painter of the Madrid court.

The last section devoted to Spanish painting includes works from the 19th century, largely inspired by the work of Goya.

The Prado Museum has a large collection of works of art from the Apennine Peninsula. The collection was divided into three separate sections covering the period from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

The Italian collection opens with 15th and 16th century paintings. The most magnificent works of this period include Andrea Mantegna’s “The Dormition of the Mother of God”, Sandro Boticelli’s “The Cruel Hunt”, Fra Angelico’s “The Annunciation”, Antonello da Messina’s “The Dead Christ Held by an Angel”. Here we can find famous paintings by Raphael Santi (“Holy Family with a Lamb”, “Madonna with a Fish”, “Cardinal”). The Prado Museum is proud to have owned, among others, the artistic legacy of Titian, with paintings such as: “Bacchanalia”, “Venus and Adonis”, “Charles V after the Battle of Mühlberg”, “The Original Sin”, and “The Burial”.

The most prominent representative of 17th-century Italian painting, whose works can be seen in the Prado, is Caravaggio (“David and Goliath”). Among his great successors we can admire, among others, paintings by Orazio Gentileschi (“The Finding of Baby Moses”). The Bologna school is represented by Annibale Carracci (“Venus, Adonis and Cupid”), Guido Reni (“Saint Sebastian”, “Atalanta and Hippomenes”) and Guercino (“Susanna and the Elders”, “Saint Peter freed by an Angel”). The last of the great Italian artists of this period, whose works are exhibited in the museum, is Luca Giordano (with works such as “Charles II on horseback”, “Rubens painting an allegory of peace”).

Eighteenth-century Italian painting in the Prado Museum is represented by a large collection of paintings by Corrado Giaquinto (“Allegory of Peace and Justice”, “Apollo and Bacchus”, “Glory of the Saints”), Giambattista Tiepolo (“Immaculate Conception”, “Olympus”, “Abraham and the Three Angels”). The landscape paintings (“View of the Palace of Aranjuez” by Battaglioli) and the portraits of the Spanish royal family also stand out.

In addition to the art of painting from Italy, this is another collection in terms of the number and value of works belonging to the Prado Museum (of course, the Spanish works are unrivalled). It consists of more than 1,000 paintings from the period between the 15th and 17th centuries, mostly collected by the Spanish royal family.

The Prado Museum can boast, among others, 15th century works by the founders of the Flemish school: Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin (“The Annunciation”, “The Merl Triptych”) and Rogier van der Veyden (“The Descent from the Cross”, “Virgin in Red”). However, the most admirable paintings are those by Hieronymus Bosch, especially the triptychs “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and “The Hay Chariot”, which depict allegorical visions of paradise, purgatory and hell.

It is worth noting that the Prado Museum has the largest collection of paintings in the world in one place. It is complemented by images such as “The Seven Deadly Sins”, “The Adoration of the Magi”, “The Temptation of St. Anthony” or “The Treatment of Stupidity” by Hans Memling.

16th century Dutch painting is represented by works by Joachim Patinir (“Rest while fleeing to Egypt”, “Landscape with St. Jerome”, “The Temptation of St. Anthony”), Quentin Massys (“Ecce Homo”), Barend van Orley (“Holy Family”, Jan Gossaert (“Christ with Mary and St. John”) and Pieter Bruegel (“The Triumph of Death”, “Wine on St. Martin’s Day”).

Undoubtedly the greatest Flemish painter of the 17th century was Peter Paul Rubens. In the Prado Museum we can find almost a hundred of his paintings, including works such as “St. George fighting the dragon”, “Adoration of the Magi”, “Adam and Eve”, “Holy Family with St. Anne”, “The Court of Paris”, “Three Graces”, “Orpheus and Eurydice” and “Garden of Love”.

Another great painter of this period was Anton van Dyck. The museum’s collections include the paintings “The Crowning of Thorns”, “Moses and the Copper Serpent” and numerous portraits. Another outstanding representative of Flemish Baroque painting was Jacob Jordaens, represented in the Prado by paintings such as “Sacrifice for Ceres”, “Sacrifice for Ceres”.