Among the initiatives to celebrate the Museum’s Bicentenary, and with the title “Audiovisual memory of the Museo del Prado”, a new documentary archive brings together the audiovisual history of the Museum – its buildings and collections – for the first time through film, NODO news bulletins and television. This selection of audiovisual material, which will come to number more than 400 items over the course of 2019, offers a survey of more than 100 years of images of the Prado.

In collaboration with the Filmoteca and Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), the archive starts with 300 titles, including a previously unseen documentary entitled “Introduction to the Museo del Prado” (1985) by Basilio Martín Patino, the RTVE series “Looking at a painting” with contributions from figures such as Alberti, Cela and Umbral, and full-length cinema films with actors such as Rita Hayworth, Rex Harrison, Tony Leblanc, Aurora Bautista and Concha Velasco, directed by Ramón Masats, Antonio Mercero, Jacinto Molina, Orson Welles and George Marshall, among others.

Marriages of Martín de Loyola to Beatriz Ñusta and Juan de Borja to Lorenza Ñusta de Loyola

The scene depicted in this anonymous painting brings together two weddings that occurred at different times and places with the purpose of showing the blood ties between the Inca dynasty and descendants of two of the founders of the Society of Jesus, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Borja. The conquest of America was thus represented as a harmonious union between the vanquishers and the vanquished.

This exhibition launches the extensive programme organised by the Museum to mark the 200th anniversary of its foundation. It offers a survey of the museum’s history that focuses on the dialogue between the Museum and society; heritage policies in Spain; the trends that have guided the growth of the museum’s collection and its transformation into a place that has allowed Spanish and foreign writers, intellectuals and artists to reflect on the country’s past and its collective identity.

Desde el 30 de octubre, en la sala 66 del edificio Villanueva, el visitante del Museo del Prado podrá disfrutar de La última comunión de san José de Calasanz, la pintura religiosa de Goya más evocadora que fue pintada el mismo año de la inauguración del Museo del Prado para la iglesia de San Antón del colegio de las Escuelas Pías de Madrid.

Este extraordinario préstamo, propiedad de la Orden de las Escuelas Pías de la provincia de Betania, se inscribe en el programa ‘La obra invitada’, una actividad patrocinada por la Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado desde 2010 para enriquecer la visita al Museo y establecer un término de comparación que permita reflexionar sobre las propias pinturas del Prado.

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.