About Prado Museum :
The Museo del Prado (or Prado Museum) is a museum and art gallery located in Madrid, the capital of Spain. The Prado Museum is renowned as being the largest art gallery in the world. It also exhibits sculptures, drawings, coins and other works of arts, but it is undoubtedly its large collection of paintings which has given it fame worldwide. It houses more than 8,600 paintings, of which they exhibit less than 2,000 because of lack of space available. A collection currently comprises around 7,600 paintings, 1,000 sculptures, 4,800 prints and 8,200 drawings, in addition to a large number of works of art and historic documents. At the present time, the Museum is displaying less than 1000 works in the main building, while around 3,100 works are on temporary loan to various museums and official institutions. Many museums throughout the world have less artistic riches in their halls than the Prado Museum has in storage. The present day art gallery comes from the royal collections of the old Trinidad Museum, as well as acquisitions, donations and bequests. Its history began during the reign of Charles III, when he tried to create a single art collection under one roof. But it was not until the reign of Fernando VII when the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture was created, on 19th November 1819. The kings death caused inheritance problems and endangered the unity of the collection, but with the disappearance of the monarchy in Spain the museum became national property and became known as the Prado National Museum. From then to this date, the works of art have survived several challenges and were transferred several times during the Spanish Civil War, ending up in the Swiss city of Geneva and being returned to Madrid during the Second World War. Nowadays, its treasures are exhibited in two adjacent buildings : the Villanueva Building where the majority of the works are housed, and the Cason del Buen Retiro.
MORE INFORMATIONS : http://www.spanisharts.com/
