Summary: In The Prado, Eugenia Afinoguénova takes an unconventional look at Spain’s most iconic art museum. Focusing on the Prado as a space of urban leisure, Afinoguénova highlights both the political history of the museum’s relation to the monarchy, the church, and the liberal nation state, as well as its role as an extension of Madrid’s social center, the Prado Promenade. Rather than assume that visitors agreed about how to interpret the museum, this volume approaches the history of the Prado as a debate about culture and leisure. Just like those crossing its threshold, who did not always trace a firm line between what they could see or do inside the museum and outside on the Paseo del Prado, the participants in this debate—journalists, politicians, museum directors, art critics—considered museum-going as part of a broader discussion concerning citizenship and voting rights, the rise of Madrid to the status of modern capital, and the growing gap between the town and the country. Based on extensive archival research on the museum’s displays and policies as well as the attitudes of visitors and city-dwellers, The Prado unfolds the museum’s many political and propagandistic roles and examines its complicated history as a monument to the tension between culture and leisure. Art historians and scholars of museum studies and visual and leisure culture will find this foundational study of the Prado invaluable.

Contents: Introduction: Between the Prado and the Pradera. 1 A Royal Public Institution, 1819-1833. 2 Inscribing Monarchy into the New Regime, 1833-1868. 3 Museum and Revolution, 1868-1874. 4 Becoming National, 1874-1902. 5 The Era of the Masses, 1902-1936. Epilogue: "More Important for Spain than the Republic and the Monarchy Combined".

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