The Prado Museum, Spain’s Cultural Jewel, Turns 200

In the 1830s, to help pay off Spain’s public debt, the country’s monasteries, along with their artwork, were expropriated, and some of those pieces later found their way into the Prado’s collection after it was declared the national museum in the 1870s. “I think the Prado represents the best image of Spain, because it’s a place that has always somehow managed to stay above our political divisions,” said Antonio Muñoz Molina, a writer and member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Compared to some other national museums, the Prado is “really unique as the collection of an emperor who had the best from the European countries over which Spain once reigned,” Mr. Dibbits said.

Source: www.nytimes.com