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Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture, the Museum also has important collections of more than 5,000 drawings, 2,000 prints, 1,000 coins and medals, and almost 2,000 decorative objects and works of art. Sculpture is represented by more than 700 works and by a smaller number of sculptural fragments. The superb picture gallery consisting of 8,600 paintings is the factor which lends the Museum its world class status. The Prado undisputedly has the world's finest collections of works by Spain's Diego Velazquez and Francisco GoyaThis article is about Francisco Goya a Spanish painter. For other uses of the name Goya, see Goya (disambiguation Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes ( March 30, 1746 April 15, 1828) was a Spanish painter and engraver. He was born in Fuendetodos and later, as well as of Hieronymus BoschHieronymus Bosch also Jeroen Bosch (c. 1450 August 1516) was a prolific Dutch painter of the 15th and 16th century. Many of his works depict sin and human moral failings; they contain complex, highly original, imaginative, and dense use of symbolic figure (a personal favorite of King Philip II of SpainPhilip II of Spain ( May 21, 1527 September 13, 1598), King of Spain (r. 1556- 1598), Naples and Sicily (r. 1554- 1558), and Portugal, Philip II, the self-proclaimed leader of the Counter-Reformation, assumed the throne in 1556 with a great deal of potent). The museum also has excellent collections of El GrecoEl Greco ( Spanish for "the Greek") is the name by which Domenikos Theotokopoulos ( 1541 April 7, 1614), a Cretan-born painter and sculptor, is best known. He was a master painter in Crete; he journeyed to Rome where he studied under Titian. In 1577 he em, Peter Paul RubensPeter Paul Rubens ( June 28, 1577 May 30, 1640) was a Flemish baroque painter. He was born in Siegen, Westphalia, to a successful Protestant lawyer, who had fled Antwerp to escape religious persecution. After his father's death, Rubens and his mother retu, RaphaelFor other references to Raphael please see Raphael (disambiguation . Raphael or Raffaello ( 6th April 1483 6th April 1520 see note below), also called Raffaello Sanzio, Raffaello Santi, Raffaello da Urbino or Rafael Sanzio de Urbino was a painter and arch, TitianTiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (c. 1477 August 27, 1576), commonly known as Titian was one of the greatest 16th century Renaissance painters of Venice, Italy. He was born at Pieve di Cadore ( Friuli) in Italy, and died at Venice. He was commonly called durin, Bartolome Esteban MurilloBartolome Esteban Murillo ( 1617 April 3, 1682) was a Spanish painter from Seville. He excelled in the painting of light clouds, flowers, water, and drapery, and in the use of color. He began his art studies under Juan del Castillo. In 1642 he moved to Ma. Fine examples of the works of Botticelli, Caravaggio, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Veronese, and many other notable artists are on display in the Museum.

The most famous work on display at the Museum is " Las Meninas" by Velazquez. Velazquez not only provided the Prado with his own superb works, but his keen eye and sensibility was also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain.

A war elephant from the church of San Baudelio de Berlanga . On display at the Romanesque chamber. The Museo del Prado is one of the buildings constructed during the reign of Charles III as part of a grandiose building scheme designed to bestow upon Madrid a monumental urban space. This "prado" (meaning meadow in Spanish) gave its name to the area (Salón del Prado, later Paseo del Prado), and later still to the Museum itself upon nationalisation. Work on the building stopped between the conclusion of Charles III's reign and during the Spanish War of Independence and was only initiated again during reign of Charles III's grandson, Ferdinand VII. The structure was used as headquarters for the cavalry and a gunpowder-store for the Napoleonic troops based in Madrid during the War of Independence. Upon the deposition of Isabella II in 1868, the Museum was nationalised and acquired the new name of Museo del Prado. The building housed the royal collection of arts: it rapidly proved too small. The first enlargement to the Museum took place in 1918.

The most recent enlargement was the incorporation of two buildings (nearby but not adjacent) into the institutional structure of the Museum. The Casón del Buen Retiro since 1971 houses the bulk of 19th century art. The Palacio de Villahermosa now houses the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum , the bulk of whose collection was originally privately gathered and not part of the State collection, but which well serves to fill the gaps and weaknesses of the Prado's collection; the Thyssen Bormisza has been controlled as part of the Prado system since 1985.

During the Spanish Civil War, upon the recommendation of the League of Nations, the Museum staff removed three hundred and fifty-three paintings, one hundred and sixty-eight drawings and the Dauphin's Treasure and sent the art to Valencia, then later to Girona and finally to Geneva. The art had to be returned across French territory in night trains to the Museum upon the commencement of World War II.

One of the promenade entrances to the Prado is dominated by a bronze statue of Diego Velazquez (see picture above).

Mention should be made of Madrid's other two national museums near by; the Museo Arqueológico houses some art of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotania, Greece, and Rome formerly in the Prado Collection. The Museo Reina Sofia houses 20th century artwork. Suplimenting the Prado with these two museums, as well as the Buen Retiro and Thyssen Bornemisza (all within a short walk of each other), the visitor to Madrid can get a view of the history and scope of the finest art of Western Civilization perhaps to be rivaled in any one city only by the collections of the museums of Paris and London.