This coming Saturday, October 3, one of Madrid’s most popular monthly cultural events returns: the Prado Museum will open its doors for the first “El Prado de noche” event of this fall.
As is customary, on the first Saturday of every month , the Prado remains open from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., although entry is only permitted until 11:00 p.m. On “El Prado de noche” Saturdays, visitors must enter through the Jerónimos Gate ( just past the ticket office area, on the museum’s eastern facade), and admission is completely free until capacity is reached.
The temporary exhibition that will close this weekend
There’s another compelling reason to stop by the Prado Museum this weekend: it will be your last chance to visit the exhibition “Valeriano D. Bécquer (1834–1870): Genre Paintings.” The exhibition is on display in Room 60 of the Villanueva Building (on the ground floor), and Saturday, October 3, and Sunday, October 4, will be the last days it can be visited.
In total, the exhibition brings together eight paintings by the Sevillian artist (the older brother of the poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer), painted between 1866 and 1867 and scattered among various institutions since 1877. This is the first time they have been exhibited together since then.
The museum describes the exhibition as“one of the finest examples of 19th-century costumbrista painting,”and it also has a unique feature: the artist’s own descriptions, which accompany the works, have been preserved.
Furthermore, any excuse is a good one to visit the permanent collection in the selected galleries of the Villanueva building. These galleries offer a journey through the Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance periods, culminating in the 19th century—that is, from Bosch, Van der Weyden, Sofonisba Anguissola, and Fra Angelico to Goya.