Thyssen Bornemisza Museum

In the baron’s private collection

The beginnings seemed like an art thriller. At the end of the 80s, Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen Bornemisza was looking for a new residence for his private collection, one of the most extensive and valuable in the world. Since 1936, most of this collection has been housed in the Thyssen palace, the Villa Favorita in Lugano (Switzerland). But Thyssen wanted to concentrate all the works of art acquired by him and his family, until now scattered around the world. To this end, he ordered a very ambitious expansion plan for his family residence, but the Swiss authorities refused to subsidize even a portion of the construction costs.

Thus began the competition between several European capitals. Margaret Thatcher invited the Baron to have tea, and Paris was also offered as a new headquarters. But suddenly Madrid appeared on the map, and the Spanish capital had something that neither the English nor the French could compete with: a wife, Carmen Cervera. The former Miss and fourth wife of the aristocrat established contacts with the socialist government of Felipe González who, for its part, presented the neoclassical Villahermosa Palace as a joint exhibition site for all the works in possession of Thyssen Bornemisza. A privileged place, directly in front of the Prado Museum

Madrid beat London and Paris and so since 1992 the Thyssen Bornemisza completes the series of large art galleries along the Paseo del Prado. With approximately 1000 works the collection covers a series of eras in history of art: Florentine and Venetian masters, the German Renaissance, Flemish landscape painting, French impressionism, German expressionism, Russian constructivism, etc. From van Eyck to Francis Bacon, the ideal complement to the Prado collection. Do you want to see one of the great European private collections?

Would you like to see one of Europe’s great private collections?