Museo Nacional de San Carlos

This museum holds the country's foremost collection of European art, gathered originally to instruct students at the royal academy founded in the late eighteenth century. Its galleries display paintings and sculpture spanning the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic periods, including works by Zurbarán, Rubens and Ingres. The neoclassical building, with its oval courtyard, was designed by Manuel Tolsá as an aristocratic residence. Quieter than the city's larger museums, it offers an unhurried encounter with Western painting.