Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, ES

ARCHLAB Available facility: Prado Data and records

The Prado Museum is one of the most important museums in the world. The collections consist of 7600 paintings, 1000 sculptures, 3000 prints and 6400 drawings as well as decorative art objects and historical documents. The museum has a very important collection of Spanish painting from the 12th to the middle of the 20th century as well as a very significant number of major Flemish and Italian masters.
The new Conservation Department is composed of different fields of activity that include the Analysis Laboratory and the Technical Documentation Section as well as Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Graphic Documents and Frame Restoration Studios.
The Conservation Department is equipped with modern technology to analyze art materials and to carry out technical studies. The subjects of research are mainly focused on paintings although other artistic materials are considered. Other research activities are related to restoration products and procedures and the improvement of imaging techniques for documentation of works of art.

ARCHLAB access will be following types of data held by the Museum/Department:

1. On line gallery available from the PRADO web page http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/. Access online to approximately 3000 works of the Museum’s collection. This data base will be enlarged until it holds the complete collection. The Advanced Search engine facilitates consultation, using categories such as artist, title of work, subject, chronology and reference number
2. PRADO central curatorial database (SIMA), containing records for more than 18000 objects. ARCHLAB access will be to the internal version of the database until now only available to museum staff.
3. The Historical Archive of the Museo Nacional del Prado that contains the documentation generated by the various departments of the Museum since its foundation in the first third of the 19th century up to the present day. A portion of the Archive has been computerised up to the level of individual files and can be consulted in the Prado’s Research Centre on the Reading Room terminals. The Archive can be consulted by all researchers interested in the Museum’s collections and in line with the prevailing legislation. Right of access includes the option to obtain copies of documents if authorised by the Museum’s technical staff.
4. The Conservation data base is currently being built and will include different kinds of information: restoration reports including historical procedures, technical images (X- radiographs, infrared reflectographies, high resolution visible photographs etc…) and laboratory reports (cross sections images and analytical data from original or added materials using FTIR -ATR, microscope; GC-MS; HPLC – PDA, RID, FD; SEM – EDX). This technical information is currently available on request directly to the Conservation Department with authorization.

Please note that access will not be granted to two important categories of records held by the Department: a. Data relating to the examination or analysis of objects not in the Prado collections; b. Data in the course of publication. 

Provider’ general information:

PRADO

Website address:

WELCOME DESK Contact Person:

Name: Dr. Pilar Sedano Head of Department