The Fountain of Grace is not just the only painting from the circle of Jan van Eyck in the Prado’s collection but also one of the most intriguing. The identity of the artist, the work’s precise subject and origins remain unknown but have provoked enormous scholarly debate since it entered the museum’s collection nearly 200 years ago. New and interesting information arising from recent research and restoration has increased our knowledge of the work.

For its first micro-sponsorship campaign the Prado is proposing the acquisition of this previously unexhibited portrait by the French painter Simon Vouet (1590-1649), an artist already represented in the Museum by two works: The Holy Family with Saint Catherine and Time vanquished by Hope and Beauty. The nude woman holding a lance on the right in the latter work is notably similar to the model in Portrait of a Girl, although the works date from some years apart.

This is a truly outstanding painting which with your support will enrich the Prado's collections and increase the appeal of its holdings of French art.

#súmatealprado.

The Museo del Prado presents an anthological exhibition organized in conjunction with the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya that enables us to admire the technical virtuosity and suggestive visual universe of Bartolomé Bermejo in all its splendor for the very first time. Bermejo was a master painter from Cordoba who pursued his professional career in the territories that made up the Kingdom of Aragon.

Bartolomé Bermejo is one of the most fascinating figures from the art scene of the second half of the fifteenth century, and this exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Madrid Regional Government and featuring the support of Fundación Banco Sabadell, brings together the majority of his works for the very first time. His works are preserved at museums and in collections distributed throughout Spain, Europe and the United States, and include masterpieces such as Saint Michael Triumphant Over the Devil with the Donor Antoni Joan of Tous, from the National Gallery in London, and Pietat Desplà from the Cathedral of Barcelona, amongst others.

This exhibition is the result of a project closely associated with the collections of the Museo del Prado, undertaken by twelve contemporary Spanish photographers. It has given rise to twelve different and personal gazes inspired by works in the Museum and by the unique atmosphere which surrounds them, the building in which they are housed and the visitors who contemplate them.

The Museo del Prado opened to the public on 19 November 1819 as a Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture. In 2019, we celebrate our Bicentenary a commemoration that will reveal the path covered since 1819 until today. On this special occasion, we wish to reflect on the future and the forthcoming challenges for this and the other great Museums of ancient painting: the need to attract social groups that traditionally are not attracted by the collections, to encourage gender and minority research studies or the challenges caused by overcrowding.

The Museo del Prado has restored three paintings considered to be among the most important religious compositions by the leading Spanish Romantic artist Antonio María Esquivel. Esquivel's work as the creator of religious paintings is barely kwnow despite being among his principal artistic concerns. Now visitors can see The Fall of Lucifer, Christ the Saviour and other works.

The ambitious redesign of the Museum’s galleries, launched with the 2009-2012 Action Plan, now continues with the inauguration of the new installation of the Dauphin’s Treasure and the reopening of Rooms 76 to 84 to house the Museum’s collections of 17^th-century Flemish and Dutch painting.

Both displays are to be seen on the second floor of the North Wing in the Villanueva Building where the galleries have been updated and refitted with the aim of highlighting two collections that reveal the quality and variety of the Prado’s holdings. These projects have benefited from the support of the Comunidad de Madrid, Fundación Iberdrola as a Protector Sponsor of the Restoration Programme, and Samsung as a Technological Collaborator.

Thanks to the support of Telefónica as a Benefactor Sponsor of the Visitor Services and other Users improvement programme, the Museo del Prado is now the first Spanish museum and one of the few in the world to make its historical archive available online. By doing so it is leading the way in free access to information by making it possible to consult both its collection of works of art and the contents of its archive online.

This initiative offers nearly 12,000 digitalised documents, including: the Museum’s ground plan and elevation; the list of the paintings on display in the Sala Francesa in 1887; the appointment of Pablo Picasso as the Prado’s director in 1936; and the personal archives of the Madrazo family, of Valentín Carderera, one of the leading figures in the Spanish 19^th-century art world, and of Salvador Viniegra, deputy director of the Museum between 1890 and 1898.