The Prado Museum is one of the must-see places for anyone visiting Madrid. This museum is so big and has so many artifacts that you will indeed find something to enjoy in it. However, other features distinguish the Prado Museum from other museums. For example, it is much more than a museum in terms of its footprint. If you are ready, let’s get to know this vast art campus a little more.
Prado’s History
Prado Museum is one of Spain’s largest and most important museums. It is so big that it is impossible to exhibit all the works in this museum simultaneously. For this reason, it is useful to be planned when going to visit.
Let’s explain this strange situation unique to the Prado Museum in more detail. Prado Museum started to be built by the King of Spain III. Charles’s order and was opened as the Royal Painting and Sculpture Museum in 1819.
Later, kings and queens ruled by adding their art collections, contributing to the Prado Museum’s approach (named after Queen Isabella in 1868) to its present form. However, when there are so many works of art, the problem of space begins to occur at some point.
When Prado Museum is merged with Trinidad and Modern Art in the following years, its inventory has expanded. As a result, it has reached its current state. With more than 8000 paintings, countless sculptures, and many manuscripts, the museum’s total number of works exceeds 10000.
Prado Campus
Although the Prado Museum is significant to the whole world, we will soon start to call it a different name because the name of the museum will change to Prado Campus.
We talked about the ever-expanding inventory of the museum throughout its history. This inventory made the original building insufficient for display. Therefore, people made different solutions from time to time.
Only part of the inventory of the Prado Museum can be exhibited at the moment. That displayed part is also distributed across many different buildings. Over the years, when the Prado Museum’s main building was insufficient, the authorities included many other places, from the ballrooms of the surrounding palaces to the churches, into the Prado Museum.
A project that started in 2002 aims to create a “Prado Campus” by combining all these structures. Thus, the world’s most valuable artworks are desired to be exhibited in a much more integrated architectural design.
Grand Masters of Spain
The Prado Museum has a severe collection of paintings, especially. The main focus of the museum is Spanish artists. That’s why you can come across the works of the greatest names from Spain in the Prado Museum.
The most famous works of many great masters, from Zurbaran to Velasquez and Goya, are exhibited in the Prado Museum.
However, the Prado Museum is also home to the works of many artists from around the world. Among them are Hieronymus Bosch, Rembrandt and Raphael. In short, the Prado Museum is a paradise for art lovers. It is also a point that you should not miss during a Madrid visit.