El Prado goes back to its roots in "Natural Histories"

Madrid’s famed El Prado Museum was originally conceived as a natural history museum. To mark the 194th anniversary of its opening, artist Angel Blanco has created a exhibition which brings together flora and fauna from the Natural History Museum to display alongside some of El Prado’s greatest works of art.

Miguel Blanco,explains what he was trying to achieve: “In the history of art, Velazquez is considered to be a “rara avis” (latin, meaning strange bird) so I have chosen to put a rare bird, an albino sparrow from the Cuenca mountains close to the painting. The bird also seems to come directly from the snowy mountain range of Guadarrama depicted in a Velazquez painting.”

“Natural Histories” is now open to the public and runs until spring 2014.