The Grand Lake in Buen Retiro

The Grand Lake in Buen Retiro is an oil painting on canvas created in 1657 by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo. The work was originally owned by Charles III of Spain before entering the collection of the Museo del Prado. The painting depicts the park setting of El Retiro Park. Its dimensions are recorded as 147 cm in height and 114 cm in width.

The work is held in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, where it remains in the permanent collection.

It entered the Prado’s holdings from the Spanish royal collection; records trace its provenance to Charles III of Spain, whose collection formed the core of the museum’s holdings at its founding in 1819.

The painting has been exhibited at the Prado in Madrid, where it has been shown in gallery displays dedicated to 17th-century Spanish landscapes and royal portraiture.

Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, a Spanish painter of the mid‑17th century, executed The Grand Lake in Buen Retiro in 1657. The work is an oil on canvas that portrays a tranquil scene from the gardens of El Retiro, a royal park in Madrid. It is part of the Prado Museum’s collection and exemplifies the artist’s engagement with landscape subjects within the Baroque idiom.

The work belongs to the early Baroque phase in Spain, a time when artists were increasingly interested in naturalistic depictions of the countryside and royal estates. El Retiro, the setting of the scene, was a favored leisure spot for the court, and its inclusion underscores the period’s fascination with combining idealized nature and aristocratic recreation.