More than one hundred masterpieces from one of the most revered collections of European painting in the world tell the story of the evolution of painting in Spain over three and a half centuries. This 'portrait of Spain' shows the internal and external factors that contributed to the development of modern Spanish identity.

On display are masterpieces by leading painters of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including El Greco, Velázquez, Ribera and Murillo. Foreign artists who worked for the royal court and directly influenced the development of painting in Spain are represented with superb paintings by Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo and Anton Raphael Mengs.