British paintings in the Museo del Prado

The collection of twenty-eight British paintings in the Museo del Prado is one of only two significant collections of British art in Spain - the other is the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, a private collection influenced by the personal taste of Paula Florido, the wife of its founder José Lázaro Galdiano. There is little British art in the former Spanish royal collection due to the English and Scottish Reformations and the ensuing tensions between Spain, England and Scotland. The works entered the collection through both purchase and donation, two in the 1880s and the rest mostly in the 20th century other than two at the end of the 19th century.[1]

Miss Martha Carr, c. 1789, portrait by Thomas Lawrence.

The twenty-eight works do not include works by continental artists active in England such as Hans Holbein the Younger, John de Critz, Peter Lely, Godfrey Kneller, Daniel Mytens, Simon Dubois and Antony van Dyck, which are classified elsewhere in the Prado collection. Most of the twenty-eight works are portraits produced between 1750 and 1850. Four are by David Roberts, three by Thomas Lawrence and two each by Thomas Gainsborough, John Hoppner, Joshua Reynolds, George Romney and Martin Archer Shee. The remaining eleven artists are represented by a single work each. There are also two other works of doubtful attribution - Portrait of Ferdinand VII of Spain (doubtfully attributed to William Collins) and Portrait of a Man, Believed to be Gonzalo José. de Vilches, first count of Vilches (doubtfully attributed to John Phillip).[2]