Google Earth adds Prado Museum layer

A new layer has been added to Google Earth which will let visitors explore masterpieces from Spain's most famous art gallery, the Prado Museum.

Fourteen of the Prado's paintings, which include The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas) and The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias), are now available to view on the virtual map website.



The paintings have been photographed in extremely high resolution, up to 14,000 million pixels (gigapixels) ensuring that viewers will be able to see details like the artists' brushstrokes.

The Prado, located in Madrid, is one of Spain's most visited destinations and houses one of the best collections of European art.

The Google Earth Prado layer also features 3D models which let visitors take virtual tours of the gallery.

Google Earth continuously updates layers to its website: last November it added an Ancient Rome layer replete with thousands of buildings from the Empire's capital city.

http://earth.google.com