13 Best Paintings at the Prado Museum

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

Although its collection is not the most extensive, hosting 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 or 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 in advance what are the main works and therefore I share with you these lists with the essential paintings that you must see in the Prado Museum.

We begin our review of the most important works of the Prado with one of its most important authors, 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 colors and somber subject matter.

These characteristics are well presented in this particularly somber painting that represents the god Chronos, or Saturn, devouring one of his sons for fear that one day he will be dethroned.

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

• 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, prime minister of King Charles IV, who had a particular taste for erotic art. Goya was the chosen one, since at that 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 and for certain details of her nudity that the painting was considered one of the first full nudes in painting of a woman outside of mythology.

Godoy also commissioned another painting of the same kind, but with the woman dressed, so that by superimposing both paintings he could simulate a nude. The great unknown of the painting is the identity of the maja, which Goya preserved in anonymity.

• 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 as king of Spain. On May 2, 1808 there was a popular uprising by the Spaniards and on May 3 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 the first great contemporary work as it has no similar precedents and gave way to styles such as romanticism.

The painting of the executions of May 3rd served as inspiration to authors such as Picasso, who was based on this work to paint 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 meters wide and almost 3 meters high, of 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 author represents himself in the foreground as if it were the first selfie in history.

The complexity of the planes, the way he has to represent the different figures and endless details, make the painting of Las Meninas in a masterpiece for which it deserves to pay 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 to Juan de Flandes, who painted it to be part of the main altarpiece of the cathedral of Palencia.

The work was part of the altarpiece along with 10 other paintings by the same author, who could not see them installed in the cathedral before his death. But it is the crucifixion that is considered the best painting among those 10 for the quality and detail of the scene.

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

The painting of The 3 Graces represents Aglaya, Talia and Euphrosyne, the daughters of Zeus, naked, embracing each other and in a scene of apparent sensuality in accordance with the canon of beauty of the seventeenth century.

The novel way of representing these three goddesses made this painting by Rubens one of his best works, so much so that King Philip IV took it even though the author painted it for his own quarters.

• 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 center for the cross, painted with an outstanding mastery for the time. It surprises the colors and the exquisite technique of the author despite being a work of the early fifteenth 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 by ship to Spain. The ship was shipwrecked but due to the good packaging the work remained 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 depicting various scenes from creation to the possible fate of mankind's destiny. With the triptych 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, represent paradise and the sin of Adam and Eve and the scene on the right symbolizes the hell to which sin leads.

The deep iconography of the painting, its technique and colors 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, being the Annunciation one of his first and most controversial creations.

Fra Angelico's representation of The Annunciation was unusual and aroused much controversy at the time. It was posthumously when his work was recognized 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 know its historical context. At the end of the 16th century the Netherlands were immersed in the so-called 80 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 retake it.

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

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

Dürer was a painter with a high esteem for himself. 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 colors. He sought perfection so much that even the landscape that can be seen from the window was inspired by the 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 that is a contradiction in the way Dürer painted himself.

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

At first, the portrait of the Cardinal 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 for its ambiguity, since 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 at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

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

El Greco is another of the star authors present in the Prado collection. The museum houses several of his works, but it is worth mentioning the painting of the Knight with his hand on his chest. The work depicts a gentleman of about 30 years old with the typical clothes of the sixteenth century.

Among all the portraits made by the artist and exhibited in the Prado, this was one of the first to arrive at the museum and one of the most distinguished, by the inclusion of an element such as the sword rarely seen in this type of portraits.

Thus, it was that sword, along with the solemn gesture of the knight was what boosted his fame among the works of the painter who died in Toledo.

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