With its incredibly rich collection of paintings by European masters of the 16th to the 19th centuries, the El Prado Museum (Museo Nacional del Prado) is, without a doubt, one of the most important museums in the world, with works by artists such as Velázquez, El Greco, Goya, Titian, Rubens, Hieronymus Bosch, etc., and indeed a very large number of works by each of these artists – almost their entire collections. If that were not enough, there are also lots of other works by other great artists, such as Murillo, Ribera, Zurbarán, Rafael, Van Dyck, etc.
You might be interested to know that at one time, the museum described itself as “the greatest concentration of masterpieces per square metre”, as it had limited space and could only take a certain number of works of the utmost quality (around 900 of them). Following several extensions, the museum’s collection of paintings now exceeds 8,600 pieces. Of these, just over 3000 come from the Royal Collection, some 2000 from the Museum of La Trinidad and the rest, more than 3,500, from the New Acquisitions collection, which includes the acquisitions of the Museum of La Trinidad and the paintings received in 1971 from the Museum of Modern Art.
As well as Spanish paintings, the museum has exceptional works by Italian, Flemish, French, German, Dutch and British artists. It also has some examples of Latin American, Filipino, Danish, North American and Central European art, among others.
If you want to visit El Prado and need somewhere to park, you can find one of our Saba public car parks on Plaza del Emperador Carlos, open 24 hours a day. It also has VIA-T available at entry and exit and charging bays for electric vehicles.
