On October 26, the second session of the lecture series "The Prado Museum: historical milestones of its collections", organized by the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation and the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, took place in the Museo Universidad de Navarra. On this occasion, the speaker was Miguel Falomir, deputy director of conservation and research at the Museo del Prado, who entitled his session "Giving away paintings. From the royal collection to the Prado Museum".

During his presentation, Falomir addressed the ways in which the works entered, either in the former Royal Collection or, since 1819, in the already constituted Prado Museum. In this regard, Falomir pointed out that a large number of the masterpieces did not come into the hands of the monarchs or the Prado Museum as a result of an economic transaction, but as gifts or donations. "The gifts of works of art satisfied the purposes for which they were made, which could range from thanking a king for a favor granted, to gaining the favors of some mandatary, the gift also had a social value." Likewise, Falomir added that the gifts also served to know "the tastes of the time", who made a gift did not venture and learned about the tastes of the person to whom the gift was addressed through their ambassadors. In that sense, there is a lot of correspondence that helps us to glimpse "a certain Spanish taste".

Throughout his lecture, Falomir analyzed the motivations behind these gifts and donations, identified those responsible for them and even ventured a typology of these practices, which "played an important role in diplomatic relations in Modern Europe", and without which "the Prado Museum would not be what it is today". "However," the expert wanted to add, "the greatest gift of all is the Museum itself to the Spanish people, which came about when Isabel II separated her personal properties from those of the State and the Museum passed into State hands".