Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza | |
.jpg) Site of the Retiro and the Prado | |
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| Established | 1992 (1992) |
|---|---|
| Location | Palace of Villahermosa Paseo del Prado, 8.Madrid, Spain |
| Coordinates | 40°24′58″N3°41′42″W / 40.416041°N 3.694925°W /40.416041; -3.694925 |
| Collection size | 1,600 |
| Visitors | 1.052.014 (2017)[1] |
| Founder | Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon |
| Director | Guillermo Solana (Artistic Director), Evelio Acevedo (Managing Director) |
| Public transit access | Banco de España  |
| Website | www.museothyssen.org |
TheThyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (Spanish:Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza,pronounced[muˈseoˈtisenboɾneˈmisa]; named after its founder, BaronHeinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza), or simply theThyssen, is an art museum inMadrid, Spain, located near thePrado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. It is known as part of the "Golden Triangle of Art", which also includes thePrado and theReina Sofía national galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts' collections: in the Prado's case this includesItalian primitives and works from theEnglish,Dutch andGerman schools, while in the case of the Reina Sofía it concernsImpressionists,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 BritishRoyal Collection.[2] 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 inLugano (Villa Favorita), searched for a better-suited location elsewhere in Europe.
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The collection was started in the 1920s as a private collection byHeinrich, 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 asGhirlandaio's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni (once in theMorgan Library) andCarpaccio'sKnight (from the collection ofOtto Kahn).[2] The collection was later expanded by Heinrich's sonBaron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921–2002),[3] who assembled most of the works from his relatives' collections and proceeded to acquire large numbers of new works (fromGothic art toLucian Freud).
The collection was initially housed in the family estate inLugano in a twenty-room building modelled after theNeue Pinakothek inMunich. In 1988, the Baron filed a request for building a further extension designed by British architectsJames Stirling andMichael Wilford, but the plan was rejected by the Lugano City Council.
In 1985, the Baron marriedCarmen "Tita" Cervera (a formerMiss 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, under the directorship ofTomás Llorens, showing 715 works of art. A year later, the Spanish Government bought 775 works for $350 million.[4] 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 to 2021.[4]
The Baroness remains involved with the museum. She personally decided thesalmon pink tone of the interior walls and in May 2006, publicly demonstrated against plans of the Mayor of Madrid,Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón to redevelop thePaseo 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, theMinistry 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.[5]
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.
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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 byDuccio,Luca di Tommè,Bernardo Daddi,Paolo Uccello,Benozzo Gozzoli and his contemporaries, and works of the earlyFlemish andDutch painters likeJan van Eyck (Diptich of the Annunciation),Petrus Christus (Madonna of the Dry Tree),Robert Campin,Rogier van der Weyden,Gerard David andHans Memling.
Other highlights include works by leadingRenaissance,Baroque andRococo painters, includingAntonello da Messina (Portrait of a Man),Francesco del Cossa,Bramantino (Christus Dolens),Fra Bartolomeo,Giulio Romano,Giovanni Bellini,Palma il Vecchio,Titian,Tintoretto,Veronese,Jacopo Bassano,Sebastiano del Piombo (Portrait ofFerry Carondelet),Bernardino Luini,Agnolo Bronzino,Domenico Beccafumi,Albrecht Dürer (Christ among the Doctors),Hans Baldung Grien,Lucas Cranach the Elder,Hans Holbein (Portrait of Henry VIII),Albrecht Altdorfer,El Greco,Caravaggio (Saint Catherine),Guercino,Sebastiano Ricci,Rubens,Van Dyck,Murillo,Rembrandt,Frans Hals (Family Portrait in a Landscape),Simon Vouet,Claude Lorrain,Canaletto,Francesco Guardi,Tiepolo,Giambattista Pittoni,Watteau,François Boucher,Chardin,Fragonard,Gainsborough andPompeo Batoni, as well as two famous portraits byDomenico Ghirlandaio (Giovanna Tornabuoni) andVittore Carpaccio (Knight in a landscape).
The Museum houses a display of North American paintings from 18th and 19th centuries, including works byCopley,Winslow Homer,John Singer Sargent.
The display of the European 19th century starts with works byFrancisco Goya,Thomas Lawrence,Delacroix,Géricault,Corot andCourbet. There areImpressionist andPost-Impressionist works by the artistsClaude Monet,Auguste Renoir,Edgar Degas,Camille Pissarro,Alfred Sisley,Berthe Morisot,Pierre Bonnard,Toulouse-Lautrec,Paul Gauguin,Cézanne, andVincent van Gogh. The large collection of twentieth-century modern art includesCubist works byPicasso,Braque andJuan Gris, as well as paintings byEdvard Munch,Egon Schiele,James Ensor,Kandinsky,Salvador Dalí,Paul Klee,Chagall,Magritte,Piet Mondrian,Edward Hopper,Jackson Pollock,Mark Rothko,Roy Lichtenstein,Willem de Kooning andFrancis Bacon. The selection of GermanExpressionism is extensive, and includes works byEmil Nolde,Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,August Macke,Max Beckmann,George Grosz, andOtto Dix.
A collection of works from the museum (Fra Angelico, Cranach, Titian, Canaletto, Rubens) is housed inBarcelona in theMuseu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.
One painting,Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain byCamille Pissarro, belonged to a Jewish woman, Lilly Cassirer who was compelled by a Nazi official to sell it under duress for an exit visa to escape Nazi Germany[6] shortly afterKristallnacht in 1939.[7] In 1958, a German court awarded Lilly Cassirer Neubauer compensation of DM 120,000, the fair market value for the work.
By 2015, her descendants had filed a lawsuit against the museum, on the grounds that it was looted by the Nazis.[7][8] On May 1, 2019, a California judge determined that the museum held the right to keep the painting.[9]
The case was heard by theUnited States Supreme Court on January 18, 2022.[10] The Supreme Court ruled that California law on choice-of-law should apply to the suit.[11] On remand, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in an action under theForeign Sovereign Immunities Act.[12][13] Motivated by this verdict,Jesse Gabriel, co-chair of theCalifornia Legislative Jewish Caucus, authored Assembly Bill 2867, which aims to help California residents recover art and other personal property stolen during the Holocaust or other acts of genocide or persecution.[14] The bill was passed in August 2024.[15] The United States Supreme Court in March 2025 vacated the Ninth circuit decision and ordered the Ninth Circuit to review the case in light of the new California law.[16] The Ninth Circuit then remanded the case to the trial court to review the effect of Assembly Bill 2867.[17]
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In 2011, due to "a lack of liquid funds", Cervera decided to sellThe Lock by the English artistJohn Constable.[18][19] 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.[20]
Media related toMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza at Wikimedia Commons