13 Best Paintings at the Prado Museum

The Prado Museum is the spearhead of the art triangle formed by the Reina Sofía, the Thyssen and the museum that is the subject of this article. Of all the things to see and do in Madrid, a visit to this historic museum should be a priority for anyone visiting the Spanish capital.

Although its collection is not the most extensive, housing some 8000 works of art of which only 1713 are on display, the historical value and variety make it one of the most important collections of paintings in the world. Famous artists such as Goya, Velázquez, Rubens and Bosch have their home in the Prado.

You can lose a whole day in its galleries, but as that is not always possible, it is best to know beforehand which are the main works and that is why I share with you these lists with the essential paintings that you must see in the Prado Museum.

We begin our review of the Prado's most important works with one of its most important artists, Francisco de Goya, and one of his most striking works. Saturn devouring his son is part of the collection of 14 works known as black paintings because of their dark colours and sombre subject matter.

These are characteristics that this particularly sombre painting, which depicts the god Chronos, or Saturn, devouring one of his sons for fear that one day he would be dethroned, has in common with this painting.

A painting that astonishes by the terror produced by the gaze of the god, the prominence and cruelty of the blood and the contrast of the colours used by Goya.

• Author: Francisco de Goya.
• Date: 1820.
• Location: Room 067 of the Prado.

We move from the terror of the painting of Saturn devouring his son to the eroticism of Goya's Naked Maja.

The painting was commissioned by Manuel Godoy, King Charles IV's prime minister, who had a particular taste for erotic art. Goya was chosen, as at the time he was the leading painter among the nobles and one of the best in Europe.

Goya depicted a young woman lying naked as if she were a Venus, but with unmistakable signs that the model was human. It was for this reason and for certain details of her nudity that the painting was considered one of the first full nudes in painting of a woman outside mythology.

Godoy also commissioned another painting of the same type, but with the woman dressed, so that by superimposing the two paintings he could simulate a nude. The great unknown of the painting is the identity of the maja, which Goya kept anonymous.

• Author: Francisco de Goya.
• Date: 1795
• Location: Room 038 of the Prado.

Napoleon dominated Europe at the time of Goya and, taking advantage of his passage through Spain to conquer Portugal, he decided to invade the country and crown his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain. On 2 May 1808, there was a popular Spanish uprising and on 3 May the French army retaliated by shooting thousands of people.

This is what Goya depicted in one of his greatest works. The painting of The Firing Squad of the 3rd of May is considered to be the first great contemporary work as it has no similar precedents and gave way to styles such as Romanticism.

The painting of the 3rd of May F iring Squad inspired artists such as Picasso, who used this work as the basis for his famous Guernica.

• Author: Francisco de Goya
• Date: 1814
• Location: Room 064 of the Prado.

Las Meninas by Velázquez is probably the most representative and famous painting in the Prado Museum.

It is one of the largest canvases, more than 3 metres wide and almost 3 metres high, by the Sevillian painter and his masterpiece. Rivers of ink have been poured over the painting because of the mysteries surrounding it and the originality of its composition.

The painting depicts up to 11 characters, such as the Meninas, daughters of Philip IV and Mariana of Austria, who also appear in the painting within another painting, and even Velázquez himself. The artist depicts himself in the foreground as if it were the first selfie in history.

The complexity of the planes, the way he depicts the different figures and an endless number of other details make the painting of Las Meninas a masterpiece for which it is worth paying the price of admission to the Prado Museum

• Author: Diego Velázquez.
• Date: 1656.
• Location: Room 012 of the Prado.

Considered a masterpiece of Hispano-Flemish painting, the Crucifixion panel was commissioned by Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca from Juan de Flandes, who painted it to form part of the main altarpiece of Palencia Cathedral.

The work was part of the altarpiece along with 10 other paintings by the same artist, who was unable to see them installed in the cathedral before his death. However, it is the Crucifixion which is considered to be the best of these 10 paintings due to the quality and detail of the scene.

• Author: Juan de Flandes.
• Date: 1509.
• Location: Room 057 of the Prado.

The painting of The Three Graces depicts Aglaya, Thalia and Euphrosyne, the daughters of Zeus, naked and embracing each other in a scene of apparent sensuality in accordance with the 17th-century canon of beauty.

The novel way of depicting these three goddesses made this painting by Rubens one of his finest works, so much so that King Philip IV took it, despite the fact that the artist painted it for his own apartments.

• Author: Peter Paul Rubens.
• Date: 1635
• Location: Room 029 of the Prado.

Rogier Van der Weyden's masterpiece is a curious triptych with a rectangular shape and a projection in the centre for the cross, painted with an outstanding mastery for the period. The colours and the painter's exquisite technique are surprising despite the fact that it is a work from the early 15th century.

As a curiosity, The Descent from the Cross is in the Prado because King Philip II was infatuated with it and had it brought to Spain by ship. The ship was shipwrecked but due to the good packaging the work was left intact.

• Author: Rogier Van der Weyden
• Date: 1443
• Location: Room 058 of the Prado

Hieronymus Bosch's masterpiece, known as the Garden of Earthly Delights, is a famous triptych which depicts various scenes from the creation to the possible destiny of mankind. When the triptych is closed, the creation scene can be seen, and once opened, the work is divided into three parts.

The first two, the one on the left and the central part, depict paradise and the sin of Adam and Eve, and the scene on the right symbolises the hell to which sin leads.

The profound iconography of the painting, its technique and colours and the complexity of the work have made it one of the main attractions of the Prado Museum.

• Author: El Bosco
• Date: 1500
• Location: Room 056A of the Prado Museum

Fra Angelico's original name was Guido di Piero and he was a Renaissance painter based in Florence. He was ordained as a priest and changed his name and began to paint, the Annunciation being one of his earliest and most controversial creations.

Fra Angelico's depiction of The Annunciation was unusual and aroused much controversy at the time. It was only posthumously that his work was recognised as a vision ahead of its time and his best work.

• Author: Guido di Piero
• Date: 1426
• Location: Room 056B of the Prado Museum

To understand this painting by the master Velázquez, it is necessary to understand its historical context. At the end of the 16th century, the Netherlands was immersed in what was known as the Eighty Years' War, in which they wanted to gain independence from Spain. The city of Breda belonged to the Netherlands until King Philip IV decided to take it back.

The scene represents the moment when, once conquered, the nobles ceded sovereignty to the Spanish. King Philip IV wanted to immortalise the moment, so he commissioned Velázquez to paint The Surrender of Breda on a large scale to decorate the Buen Retiro Palace.

• Author: Diego Velázquez
• Date: 1635
• Location: Room 009A of the Prado.

Dürer was a painter who held himself in high esteem. So much so that he used himself as a model to represent Jesus Christ. As a result of this self-esteem, he represented himself with the best clothes of the time and very flattering colours. So much did he strive for perfection that even the landscape seen from the window was inspired by beautiful Italy, while he was in Germany.

Apart from the author's ego, Dürer's self-portrait is painted with a remarkable technique that encouraged him in his craft. A craft, by the way, that was not considered a nobleman's craft and which is a contradiction in the way Dürer painted himself.

• Author: Albrecht Dürer
• Date: 1498
• Location: Room 055B

The portrait of the Cardinal initially went unnoticed until it became known that its author was Raphael, one of the greatest and most important Italian Renaissance artists in the history of art.

Apart from Raphael's impeccable technique, the work aroused the interest of many due to its ambiguity, as the portrait was attributable to many cardinals of the time.

It is not known for certain which cardinal posed for the Italian artist, although there is a list of two or three probable names. The perspective of the portrait is very reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci's Gioconda, on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

• Author: Rafael
• Date: 1511
• Location: Room 049 of the Prado.

El Greco is another of the star artists in the Prado collection. The museum houses several of his works, but the Knight with his Hand on his Chest is particularly noteworthy. The work depicts a gentleman of about 30 years of age in typical 16th-century clothing.

Of all the portraits painted by the artist and exhibited in the Prado, this was one of the first to reach the museum and one of the most distinguished, due to the inclusion of an element such as the sword, rarely seen in this type of portrait.

In this way, it was the sword, together with the solemn gesture of the knight, that made it famous among the works of the painter who died in Toledo.

• Author: El Greco
• Date: 1580
• Location: Room 009B