The Prado Museum in Madrid, is unquestionably one of the most famous museums in the world, along with such museums as the Louvre in Paris and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. But despite the wealth of its collection, the museum building is distinguished by its rigorous elegance of the Louvre and the Hermitage pompous, as if unwilling to distract visitors from their design works of art. The museum building, whose construction began in late XIIX century, the building of the museum of natural Science. During the war between Spain and France in 1811, the museum building was converted into stables occupied Madrid French troops. By 1814 the museum building was restored, and by order of King Ferdinand VII in it was discovered Art Gallery. A few years later signed a decree on the foundation of the Royal Museum, in which the fund was transferred to a large part of the royal collection. Since that time, the royal family personally involved selection of paintings for galleries, buying paintings of famous artists.
However, the preference of monarchs was influenced by political considerations. For this reason, the bulk of the collection are paintings Prado Spanish, Italian and Flemish masters, and there are practically no paintings by French, British and Dutch painters. Gallery itself is designed so that you can work around three hours. Helpful museum staff can advise you to join one of the excursions or to buy the audio guide – a small radio, a voice that will accompany you during the tour, unfortunately, the audio guide in Russian they do not have. Until recently, more than three thousand works of art stored in the Prado, the continuously exhibited only about a thousand. However, recently finished work to expand the museum's exhibition halls, so for about five hundred works not previously exhibited their rightful place in the permanent exhibition.