Museo del Prado

The crown jewel of Madrid.

Madrid, Spain, Europe

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The Museo del Prado dates back almost 200 years and has been primarily shaped by the collecting tastes of Spain’s 16th- and 17th-century monarchs. Collecting during that period differed from the present day as the goal seemed to be to collect as many paintings as possibly by a favourite artist, rather than to create a comprehensive collection. This explains why the Prado has been described as a museum of painters not of paintings, given that its artists are represented in a superlative manner with, for example, the largest holdings of Bosch, Titian, El Greco, Rubens, Velázquez and Goya. This type of instinctive collecting also resulted in gaps and explains why some periods are less well represented than others. While primarily oriented towards painting, these collections also include outstanding examples of sculpture, the decorative arts and works on paper, from antiquity to the 19th century. 

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