The Thyssen Bornemisza National Museum is located near the Prado Museum. It was named after its founder, Baron Thyssen. Together with the Prado Museum and the Reina Sofia Gallery, it represents the "golden triangle" of art. Every work of art that they failed to place in the Prado and Reina Sofia museums can be found in this museum. These are masterpieces from the English, Dutch and German "schools", as well as works by expressionists, impressionists, as well as paintings from Europe and America, made in the 20th century. The museum houses over 1.600 masterpieces, which are a private collection and are ranked the second largest private collection, just behind the private royal collection from Great Britain.
This private collection was started by Baron Thyssen, in 1920. Among the first paintings in the collection were images of millionaires from America who were then battling The Great Depression that came with high inheritance taxes. The portrait of " Giovanni Tornabuoni" and the "Young Knight in a Landscape" by Carpaccio stand out from the collection of American millionaires. This family tradition of collecting masterpieces into a private collection was continued by Thyssen’s son, Baron Hans. He mostly collected works of Gothic art. In 1985, Baron Hans married the former Miss Spain (Baroness Carmen Cervera), so she also started collecting.
The museum was officially opened quite "late", in 1992, with its 715 works of art at that time. It is interesting that baroness rented as many as 429 works of art from her private collection to this museum, and she was the only one who decided what the interior of the building would look like (above all, she chose the color of the walls). The museum was originally located in Lugano, but at the initiative of the baron's wife, it was moved to Madrid.
The rich collection, bought by mother, father and son, covers as much as 800 years of rich European painting. The emphasis is on early European masterpieces, more precisely the 14th and 15th centuries, and includes artists from Italy and the Netherlands, works of the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo. Here are the works made in America in the XVIII and XIX century, as well as the European XIX century (Francisco Goya, Van Gogh, Pissaro - "Rue Saint-Honore in the Aftermoon, Effect of rain").
One of the paintings from the private collection of Baroness Cervera, the work of the English artist John Constable, sold for an incredible 22.5 million pounds.
Ticket price for the museum
Regular ticket price: 9 EUR
Reduced ticket price: 6 EUR - for pensioners and students
Reduced ticket price: 7.50 EUR - for group visits
Museum opening hours
The museum is open daily from 10am to 7pm
Author of the text:
Maja Glavaš, Bachelor with Honours in Communicology. Works in Tourism.
Contact: [email protected]; instagram: travel_europe1
