Yasumasa Morimura Jake and Dinos Chapman Pablo Picasso Sigmar Polke Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes Dinos Chapman Jose Gutierrez Solana Rona Pondick

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According to a royal decree issued in 1995, the Prado owns all artworks in Spain's national collection dating from before 1881, the year of Picasso's birth, while the Reina Sofia owns everything thereafter.

Now, Miguel Zugaza, director at the Prado, has agreed to lend 20 prints by Goya, dating from between 1799 and 1810, to the Reina Sofia for the long term.

A rotating selection from the Prado's collection of 162 Goya prints will be installed in a newly refurbished gallery at the Reina Sofia, alongside works by modern Spanish painters such as Zuloaga, Gutiérrez Solana, and Darío de Regoyos.

The arrangement, which calls into question the definition of modern art, was spawned by a decision by Reina Sofia director Manuel Borja-Villel to reorganize the museum's collection. “When I was rehanging [the museum’s symbolists collection], I thought about the origins of Spanish modernity and how important [it] was not to limit the understanding of the Spanish history of art," he said. "Only then [did] I realize how crucial it was to have some works by Goya as reference.”

“Goya explains better than any other the art of the 20th century," Borja-Villel said, adding that Goya's influence "can now be traced clearly from Manet through Picasso to Surrealism, Polke, the Chapman Brothers, Rona Pondick, Yasumasa Morimura, David Reekie, and so on.”