Considered one of the most important representatives of the French Rococo tradition in Spain and sometimes referred to as the “Spanish Watteau”, Paret’s output is in fact more varied and eclectic due, for example, to its inclusion of numerous works of a Neo-classical nature.

Goya’s dazzling career and subsequent influence as well as Paret’s own eventful life - including a lengthy period of exile in Puerto Rico and Bilbao - would eventually overshadow his role in 18th-century Spanish art. The exhibition has thus set out to reaffirm the artist’s importance and present him to a wider public both in Spain and abroad.

With this selection of more than 80 works, including most of the artist’s paintings and a selection of his drawings, the Museo Nacional del Prado with the support of Fundación AXA is presenting a chronological and thematic survey in Rooms A and B of the Jerónimos Building until 21 August. It will enable visitors to discover an artist who was outstanding in terms of the innovative, modern nature of his subjects and his particular, individual style.

On display until 17 July in Room 83 of the Villanueva Building, The Sense of Smell, a painting by Jan Brueghel and Rubens, is the focus of The Essence of a Painting. An Olfactory Exhibition, curated by Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish Painting and the Northern Schools at the Museo Nacional del Prado, and Gregorio Sola, Senior Perfumer at Puig and an academician of the Perfume Academy, who has created ten fragrances associated with elements in the painting.

Brueghel’s work, which evokes the garden of rare trees and plants belonging to Isabel Clara Eugenia and her husband in early 17th-century Brussels, depicts more than 80 species of plants and flowers, as well as various animals associated with the sense of smell, such as the scent hound and civet, and a range of objects relating to the world of perfume, including scented gloves, vessels holding fragrant substances, a perfume burner warmed in a sumptuous brazier, and vessels for distilling essences.

This 40-minute audiovisual work, made in collaboration with the Beyeler Foundation, has been created by the contemporary artist Philippe Parreno.

It will be shown until 4 September in an installation produced by Acciona Cultura in Room 64-65 of the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Using cutting-edge image and sound technology, Parreno brings to life Goya’s now vanished home, the Quinta del Sordo, where he created his disturbing “Black Paintings”.

This project aims to enrich visitors’ experience of the original “Black Paintings”, on display at the Museum in Room 67, in a new and previously unexplored way.

The Prado Museum has architecturally rehabilitated the space of the north Ionic gallery of the Villanueva building as part of its objective to increase the visibility of its sculpture and decorative arts collections.

The gallery will be open to the public from May 19^th, bringing together 56 sculptural pieces that range from Ancient Egypt, through the Greco-Roman period, up to the Renaissance and Baroque periods; precious objects that transmit the validity of classical language and its interpretation through the centuries, of the tangible closeness of three-dimensional works and the rich variety of the Prado Museum's collection.

Room 60 in the Villanueva building brings together a selection of eight works by Francisco Pradilla housed in the Museum. Together with the large painting Doña Juana la Loca and her sketch, exhibited in room 75, these works will enable the visitor to make a tour of his career as a history painter, a part of his profession that gave him his greatest fame. We also celebrate the centenary of the death of this artist, who was Director of the Prado Museum.

The exhibition is sponsored by Ramón y Cajal Abogados and reflects the interest in history painting and the period for which Pradilla had a predilection, the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, presenting two stages of its production: the initial one devoted to the success of his painting Doña Juana la Loca, and the final one, between 1906 and 1910, when the genre fell into disuse.