The national gallery of Spain, in Madrid, founded in 1818 as a natural history museum. It holds the greatest collection of Spanish masters, of course: Murillo, Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Zurbarán, and so on; as well as many modern Spanish masters such as Picasso and Miró.

The kings of Spain planned to deposit some of the royal collection for deposit as early as 1785. With the deposition of the queen for a brief republic in 1868, the royal collection was nationalized, adding to the Prado. It was designed by Juan de Villanueva (1739-1811).

The name means field or meadow, which is what it was originally located in.