The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. It is known as part of the " Golden Triangle of Art", which also includes the Prado and the Reina Sofía national galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts' collections: in the Prado's case this includes Italian primitives and works from the English, Dutch and German schools, while in the case of the Reina Sofia it concerns

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

s, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the 20th century. With over 1,600 paintings, it was once the second largest private collection in the world after the British

Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...

.Jonathan Kandell
"Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, Industrialist Who Built Fabled Art Collection, Dies at 81,"
New York ''Times'', 28 April 2002. A competition was held to house the core of the collection in 1987–88 after Baron Thyssen, having unsuccessfully sought permission to enlarge his Museum in Lugano (Villa Favorita), searched for a better-suited location elsewhere in Europe.

History

The collection was started in the 1920s as a private collection by Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon. In a reversal of the movement of European paintings to the US during this period, one of the elder Baron's sources was the collections of American millionaires coping with the Great Depression and inheritance taxes. In this way he acquired old master paintings such as Ghirlandaio's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni (once in the Morgan Library) and Carpaccio's '' Knight'' (from the collection of Otto Kahn). The collection was later expanded by Heinrich's son Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921–2002), who assembled most of the works from his relatives' collections and proceeded to acquire large numbers of new works (from Gothic art to Lucian Freud). The collection was initially housed in the family estate in Lugano in a twenty-room building modelled after the

Neue Pinakothek The Neue Pinakothek (, ''New Pinacotheca'') is an art museum in Munich, Germany. Its focus is European Art of the 18th and 19th centuries, and it is one of the most important museums of art of the nineteenth century in the world. Together with th ...

in Munich. In 1988, the Baron filed a request for building a further extension designed by British architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford, but the plan was rejected by the Lugano City Council. In 1985, the Baron married Carmen "Tita" Cervera (a former Miss Spain 1961) and introduced her to art collecting. Cervera's influence was decisive in persuading the Baron to relocate the core of his collection to Spain where the local government had a building available next to the Prado. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum officially opened in 1992, showing 715 works of art. A year later, the Spanish Government bought 775 works for $350 million.Laurie Rojas (February 2, 2015)
Thyssen-Bornemisza keeps Spain in suspense over loan
'' The Art Newspaper''. These pieces are now in the purpose-built museum in Madrid. After the museum opened, in 1999, Cervera loaned 429 works of her own art collection to the museum for 11 years. The loan was renewed annually for free from 2012. The Baroness remains involved with the museum. She personally decided the salmon pink tone of the interior walls and in May 2006, publicly demonstrated against plans of the Mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón to redevelop the Paseo del Prado as she thought the works and traffic would damage the collection and the museum's appearance. In 2015, the Baroness delayed the annual renewal of her loan while deciding whether or not to temporarily move her collection for a fee to a museum in Barcelona, the United States, or Russia. She eventually decided to keep the collection in Madrid, but in 2017, she again delayed signing the agreement. In 2021, the Ministry of Culture officially finalized an agreement to loan the collection for an annual fee of 6.5 million euros ($7.8 million) over the course of 15 years.

The collection

The Old Masters were mainly bought by the elder Baron, while Hans focused more on the 19th and 20th century, resulting in a collection that spans eight centuries of European painting, without claiming to give an all-encompassing view but rather a series of highlights. Giovanni Battista Pittoni - The Rest on the Flight into Egypt - WGA17975

Giovanni Battista Pittoni - The Rest on the Flight into Egypt - WGA17975

One of the focal points is the early European painting, with a major collection of trecento and quattrocento (i.e. 14th and 15th century) Italian paintings by Duccio,

Luca di Tommè Luca di Tommè (or Luca Thome) (c. 1330–1389) was an Italian painter active between 1356 and 1389 in Siena. He worked in the style established by earlier Sienese painters Duccio, Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. More t ...

Bernardo Daddi Bernardo Daddi ( 1280 – 1348) was an early Italian Renaissance painter and the leading painter of Florence of his generation. He was one of the artists who contributed to the revolutionary art of the Renaissance, which broke away from the conven ...

, Paolo Uccello, Benozzo Gozzoli and his contemporaries, and works of the early Flemish and Dutch painters like

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...

(''Diptich of the Annunciation''), Petrus Christus ('' Madonna of the Dry Tree''), Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden, Gerard David and Hans Memling. Other highlights include works by leading Renaissance,

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

and Rococo painters, including Antonello da Messina ('' Portrait of a Man''),

Francesco del Cossa Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430 – c. 1477) was an Italian Renaissance painter of the School of Ferrara, who after 1470 worked in Bologna. Cossa is best known for his frescoes, especially his collaboration with Cosimo Tura on a cycle of the mont ...

, Bramantino ('' Christus Dolens''), Fra Bartolomeo, Giulio Romano,

Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father ...

, Palma il Vecchio, Titian, Tintoretto,

Veronese Veronese is the Italian word denoting someone or something from Verona, Italy and may refer to: * Veronese Riddle, a popular riddle in the Middle Ages * ''Veronese'' (moth), a moth genus in the family Crambidae * Monte Veronese, an Italian chees ...

, Jacopo Bassano, Sebastiano del Piombo (''Portrait of Ferry Carondelet''), Bernardino Luini,

Agnolo Bronzino Agnolo di Cosimo (; 17 November 150323 November 1572), usually known as Bronzino ( it, Il Bronzino ) or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, ''Bronzino'', may refer to his relatively dark skin or reddis ...

, Domenico Beccafumi,

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

(''

Christ among the Doctors The Finding in the Temple, also called Christ among the Doctors or the Disputation (the usual names in art), was an episode in the early life of Jesus depicted in Luke 2, chapter 2 of the Gospel of Luke. It is the only event of the later childho ...

''), Hans Baldung Grien,

Lucas Cranach the Elder Lucas Cranach the Elder (german: Lucas Cranach der Ältere ; – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is know ...

, Hans Holbein (''Portrait of Henry VIII''), Albrecht Altdorfer,

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

(''Saint Catherine''), Guercino,

Sebastiano Ricci Sebastiano Ricci (1 August 165915 May 1734) was an Italian painter of the late Baroque school of Venice. About the same age as Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Tiepolo, he represents a late version of the vigorous and luminous Cortonesqu ...

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

, Van Dyck, Murillo,

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group ...

(''

Family Portrait in a Landscape Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

''), Simon Vouet,

Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...

, Canaletto,

Francesco Guardi Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (; 5 October 1712 – 1 January 1793) was an Italian painter, nobleman, and a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of ...

, Tiepolo,

Giambattista Pittoni Giambattista Pittoni or Giovanni Battista Pittoni (6 June 1687 – 6 November 1767) was a Venetian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He was among the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, of which in 1758 he became the s ...

, Watteau,

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

Chardin Chardin is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, (1699–1779), French painter noted for his still life works * Jean Chardin, (1643–1713), French jeweller and traveller, author of ''The Trave ...

, Fragonard, Gainsborough and Pompeo Batoni, as well as two famous portraits by

Domenico Ghirlandaio Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi (, , ; 2 June 1448 – 11 January 1494), professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, also spelled as Ghirlandajo, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of ...

('' Giovanna Tornabuoni'') and Vittore Carpaccio (''Knight in a landscape''). The Museum houses a display of North American paintings from 18th and 19th centuries, including Copley, Winslow Homer,

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

. The display of the European 19th century starts with works by Francisco Goya, Thomas Lawrence, Delacroix, Géricault, Corot and Courbet. There are

and

Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

works by the artists Claude Monet,

Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that " ...

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

Camille Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...

, Alfred Sisley,

Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist ...

, Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh. The large collection of twentieth century modern art includes Cubist works by

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

and Juan Gris, as well as paintings by

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portr ...

, James Ensor, Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí, Paul Klee, Chagall, Magritte,

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being ...

, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko,

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...

, Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacon. The selection of German

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

is extensive, and includes Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,

August Macke August Robert Ludwig Macke (3 January 1887 – 26 September 1914) was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly act ...

, Max Beckmann,

George Grosz George Grosz (; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objec ...

, and Otto Dix. A collection of works from the museum ( Fra Angelico, Cranach, Titian, Canaletto) is housed in Barcelona in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. One painting, ''

Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain ''Ruta graveolens'', commonly known as rue, common rue or herb-of-grace, is a species of ''Ruta'' grown as an ornamental plant and herb. It is native to the Balkan Peninsula. It is grown throughout the world in gardens, especially for its bluis ...

'' by

, belonged to a Jewish woman, Lilly Cassirer who was compelled by a Nazi official to exchange it under duress for an exit visa to escape Nazi Germany shortly after Kristallnacht in 1939. By 2015, her descendants had filed a lawsuit against the museum, on the grounds that it was looted by the Nazis. On May 1, 2019, a California judge determined that the museum held the right to keep the painting, despite international agreements to the contrary. The case was heard before the United States Supreme Court on January 18, 2022.

Selected collection highlights

File:Duccio di Buoninsegna - Christ and the Samaritan Woman - Google Art Project.jpg, Christ and the Samaritan from the Maestà by Duccio File:Virgen humildad-fra angelico.jpg, Madonna of Humility (Fra Angelico) File:Díptico de la anunciación Jan van Eyck.jpg,

Annunciation (van Eyck, Madrid) ''The Annunciation'' (sometimes ''Diptych of The Annunciation'') is an oil on wood in grisaille painting by the Early Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck, dated by art historians as between 1434 and 1436. The panels form a diptych, and are current ...

File:Petrus Christus - The Virgin of the dry Tree - 1465.jpg, Madonna of the Dry Treeby Petrus Christus File:Albrecht Dürer - Jesus among the Doctors - Google Art Project.jpg, Christ among the Doctors (Dürer) File:Vittore Carpaccio - Young Knight in a Landscape - Google Art Project.jpg,

Young Knight in a Landscape ''Young Knight in a Landscape'', or ''Portrait of a Knight'', is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio, now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Madrid. Dated 1510, this is the earliest full-length portra ...

by Vittore Carpaccio File:Sebastiano del Piombo 003.jpg, Portrait of Ferry Carondelet with his secretaries by Sebastiano del Piombo File:Hans Holbein, the Younger, Around 1497-1543 - Portrait of Henry VIII of England - Google Art Project.jpg, Portrait of Henry VIIIby Hans Holbein File:Lucas Cranach d. Ä. - Quellnymphe (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).jpg, The Nymph of the Fountain

File:Bronzino - Saint Sebastian - Google Art Project.jpg, Saint Sebastian

Bronzino Agnolo di Cosimo (; 17 November 150323 November 1572), usually known as Bronzino ( it, Il Bronzino ) or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, ''Bronzino'', may refer to his relatively dark skin or reddis ...

File:Retrato del Dux Francesco Venier.jpg, Portrait of Dux Francesco Venier by Titian File:Giacopo Comin Il Tintoretto Paradiso Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.jpg, Paradise by Tintoretto File:El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) - The Annunciation - Google Art Project.jpg,

Annunciation (El Greco, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza) ''Annunciation'' is a 1575–1576 oil on canvas painting of the Annunciation by El Greco, one of the earliest paintings by the artist. It is now part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, in Madrid. Bibliography * José Álvarez Lopera, ''El Greco'' ...

File: Santa Catalina de Alejandría.jpg,

Saint Catherine (Caravaggio) ''Saint Catherine of Alexandria'' (c. 1598) is an oil painting (173x133 cm) by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, painted from 1598- 1599. It is part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of Madrid. History and description The painting was ...

File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn - Self-portrait wearing a Hat and two Chains - Google Art Project.jpg, Self-portrait wearing a Hat and two Chains by

File:Frans Hals - Family Group in a Landscape - WGA11154.jpg,

Family Group in a Landscape ''Family Group in a Landscape'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted ''c.'' 1645-1648, and now in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, in Madrid. Painting The painting is one of a handful of paintings that ...

File:Giovanni Antonio Canal, il Canaletto - Warwick Castle - the South Front - WGA03947.jpg, Warwick Castle the South Front by Canaletto File:Fragonard, The See-Saw.jpg, The swing Jean-Honore Fragonard File:Edgar Degas - Balançant danseurs.jpg, Rocking Dancer

File:Vincent van Gogh - Les Vessenots à Auvers - Google Art Project.jpg, Les Vessenots à Auvers by Vincent van Gogh File:Paul Gauguin - Mata Mua (In Olden Times) - Google Art Project.jpg, Paul Gauguin File:John Singer Sargent - Portrait of Millicent Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland.jpg, Portrait of Millicent Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland

File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Fränzi in front of a Carved Chair.jpg, Fränzi before a carved chair Ernst Ludwig Kirchner File:Franz Marc - Der Traum (1912).jpg, The dream by

Franz Marc Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later b ...

File:Egon Schiele - Häuser am Fluss.jpg, Häuser am Fluss

File:Metropolis by Grosz.jpg,

Metropolis (Grosz) ''Metropolis'' is an oil on canvas painting by the German artist George Grosz, executed in 1916–1917. It belongs to the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Description The growth of cities into gigantic metropolises was one o ...

Sales

In 2011, due to "a lack of liquid funds", Cervera decided to sell '' The Lock'' by the English artist

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

. The painting, which belonged to her private collection, was sold in London the following year for £22.4 million, more than doubling the price paid for it in 1990.

References

External links

Official websiteEducaThyssen
website of the Research and Further Studies Department
Virtual tour of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
provided by

Google Arts & Culture Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world. It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...