The Museo del Prado, officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It houses collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish royal collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection. Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now one of the largest outside of Italy.
The Colossus, is known in Spanish as El Coloso and also El Gigante, El Pánico and La Tormenta. It is a painting traditionally attributed to Francisco de Goya that shows a giant in the centre of the canvas walking towards the left hand side of the picture. Mountains obscure his legs up to his thighs and clouds surround his body; the giant appears to be adopting an aggressive posture as he is holding one of his fists up at shoulder height. A dark valley containing a crowd of people and herds of cattle fleeing in all directions occupies the lower third of the painting.
Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress is a 1660 oil on canvas portrait of Margaret Theresa of Spain by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, though his identification as its author is not considered secure. It is now in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
The Parasol is one of a cartoon series of oil on linen paintings made by the painter Francisco Goya. This series of paintings was specifically made in order to be transformed into tapestries that would be hung on the walls of the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Madrid, Spain. The tapestries showed serene events in everyday life, which made them a nice addition to the dining room of Prince and Princess of Asturias—the future King Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma. The queen called on Goya because she wanted to decorate the dining room with cheerful scenes; The Parasol and the other tapestry paintings were Goya's response to this request. The painting is currently located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid as is another in the series, Blind man's bluff.
Blind Man's Bluff is one of the Rococo oil-on-linen cartoons produced by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya for tapestries for the Royal Palace of El Pardo. The painting and the previous skectch are held in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid.
A Pilgrimage to San Isidro is one of the Black Paintings painted by Francisco de Goya between 1819–23 on the interior walls of the house known as Quinta del Sordo that he purchased in 1819. It probably occupied a wall on the first floor of the house, opposite The Great He-Goat.
The Black Paintings is the name given to a group of 14 paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819 and 1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity. In 1819, at the age of 72, Goya moved into a two-story house outside Madrid that was called Quinta del Sordo. Although the house had been named after the previous owner, who was deaf, Goya too was nearly deaf at the time as a result of an unknown illness he had suffered when he was 46. The paintings originally were painted as murals on the walls of the house, later being "hacked off" the walls and attached to canvas by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. They are now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Summer or The Threshing Floor is the largest cartoon painted by Francisco de Goya as a tapestry design for Spain's Royal Tapestry Factory. Painted from 1786 to 1787, it was part of his fifth series, dedicated to traditional themes and intended for the heir to the Spanish throne and his wife. The tapestries were to hang in the couple's dining room at the Pardo Palace.
Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón (1891–1971) was a Spanish art historian, who from 1960 to 1968 was Director of the Museo del Prado.
Children in a Chariot is a 1779 painting by Francisco de Goya. It is part of the third series of cartoons he produced for tapestries at the Royal Palace of El Pardo; the tapestry in question was to be positioned over a door. The painting is in the Toledo Museum of Art, in Toledo, Ohio.
The Spanish royal collection of art was almost entirely built up by the monarchs of the Habsburg family who ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, and then the Bourbons. They included a number of kings with a serious interest in the arts, who were patrons of a series of major artists: Charles V and Philip II were patrons of Titian, Philip IV appointed Velázquez as court painter, and Goya had a similar role at the court of Charles IV.
Landscape with Skater is an oil on canvas painting by Flemish artist Joos de Momper. The painting is today considered a collaboration between the latter and Jan Brueghel the Elder. It was painted between 1615 and 1625. The painting is kept in the Museum of Prado in Madrid.
Gregorio Cruzada Villaamil was a Spanish art historian, interested in the art of Velasquez, Rubens, Goya, and all the art seized by the Spanish state during the Mendizábal confiscations.
The Drunk Mason is an oil on canvas painted by Francisco de Goya, then reputed painter of tapestries for the royal palaces. It belonged to the fifth series undertaken by Goya, and, like all the pieces that compose it, was painted between 1786 and 1787.
The Victorious Hannibal Seeing Italy from the Alps for the First Time, or Hannibal the victor crossing the Alps, or Hannibal the victorious from the heights of the Alps looks out over the plains of Italy is an oil painting by Spanish painter Francisco Goya, dating from his early years. It is the oldest documented work by the painter.
The series of paintings for the alameda of the Dukes of Osuna comprises seven pictures painted by Francisco de Goya between 1786 and 1787. The country estate of the dukes and duchesses, who were the painter's mecenas and friends, was known as El Capricho, and was located on the outskirts of Madrid.
A Village Bullfight or A Village Corrida is an oil painting by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya.
The tapestry cartoons of Francisco de Goya are a group of oil on canvas paintings by Francisco de Goya between 1775 and 1792 as designs for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara near Madrid in Spain. Although they are not the only tapestry cartoons made at the Royal Factory, they are much the best known. Most of them represent bucolic, hunting, rural and popular themes. They strictly adhered to the tastes of King Charles III and the princes Charles of Bourbon and Maria Luisa of Parma, and were supervised by other artists of the factory such as Maella and the Bayeu family. Most are now in the Museo del Prado, having remained in the Spanish Royal collection, although there are some in art galleries in other countries.
La novillada, is an oil painting by Francisco de Goya, painted in 1780, when he was trying his hand at bullfighting. It is part of the fourth series of tapestry cartoons for the Prince of Asturias' antechamber in the Pardo Palace.
