Paintings
3,576 paintings and 278 mural paintings from the 15th to the 20th century
Isabella I of Castile was the first queen to show a predilection for painting, gathering some 460 works, most of them from the Flemish school, which included family portraits and a large number of religious paintings.
The preference for Italian and Spanish painting was noticeable from Charles V and Philip II onwards, and the collection grew enormously to adorn the network of palaces and royal houses built in Madrid and the surrounding areas; in particular, the former Alcazar and the recently founded Monastery of El Escorial. During the Baroque period, painting became gradually more independent from the other arts through the creation of picture galleries for to contemplate these. Spanish painting also enjoyed its moment of greatest splendour, the Great Golden Age, largely due to the encouragement of Philip IV - one of the great European collectors of the 17th century - and his son Charles II.
The arrival of the House of Bourbon brought a great change in all the arts which rippled outwards to the rest of Spain from Madrid and the Royal Sites. French and Italian painters were added and made their mark on the Royal Collections. In the 18th century, important mural series were incorporated into the royal palaces and country houses - in San Ildefonso, Madrid, El Pardo, Aranjuez - with several sets of canvases that decorated all these royal residences. The development of a national school would culminate at the end of the century with Francisco de Goya and his portraits of the kings or the frescoes of the Chapel of San Antonio de la Florida. In the nineteenth century, the royal family was portrayed by academic painters such as Vicente López and Federico de Madrazo, and the decoration of the royal sites included landscapes, popular scenes and paintings of historical events. The portraits by Joaquín Sorolla and Ramón Casas stand out amongst the works from the early 20th century. The collection has continued to grow with works by artists such as Salvador Dalí, the El Paso group, Josep Guinovart, Pablo Palazuelo, José Guerrero, Eduardo Arroyo, Miquel Barceló, Soledad Sevilla, Luis Gordillo and Antonio López.