Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (, ; named after its founder, Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza), 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 Sofía it concerns Impressionists, 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. 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

thumb|left|upright|Venus and Cupid holding a mirror – [[Peter Paul Rubens]]

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). 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 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, under the directorship of Tomás Llorens, showing 715 works of art. A year later, the Spanish Government bought 775 works for € million. 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.

The collection

thumb|left|250px|[[Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni – Domenico Ghirlandaio (1489–'90)]]

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.

thumb|right|200px|[[Saint Sebastian (Bernini)|Saint Sebastian – Gian Lorenzo Bernini (c. 1616–'17). Work exhibited on loan from a private collection.]]

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, Bernardo Daddi, Paolo Uccello, Benozzo Gozzoli and his contemporaries, and works of the early Flemish and Dutch painters like Jan van Eyck (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 and Rococo painters, including Antonello 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 of Ferry 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 and Pompeo Batoni, as well as two famous portraits by Domenico Ghirlandaio (Giovanna Tornabuoni) and Vittore Carpaccio (Knight in a landscape).

The Museum houses a display of North American paintings from 18th and 19th centuries, including works by Copley, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent.

thumb|right|300px|[[Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain – Camille Pissarro (1897)]]

The display of the European 19th century starts with works by Francisco Goya, Thomas Lawrence, Delacroix, Géricault, Corot and Courbet. There are Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by the artists Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Pierre Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh. The large collection of twentieth-century modern art includes Cubist works by Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris, as well as paintings by Edvard 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 and Francis Bacon. The selection of German Expressionism is extensive, and includes works by Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke, Max Beckmann, George Grosz, and Otto Dix.

A collection of works from the museum (Fra Angelico, Cranach, Titian, Canaletto, Rubens) is housed in Barcelona in the .

Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain

One painting, Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain by Camille 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 shortly after Kristallnacht in 1939. 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. On 1 May 2019, a California judge determined that the museum held the right to keep the painting.

The case was heard by the United States Supreme Court on 18 January 2022. The Supreme Court ruled that California law on choice-of-law should apply to the suit. On remand, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favour of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in an action under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Motivated by this verdict, Jesse Gabriel, co-chair of the California 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. The bill was passed in August 2024. 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. The Ninth Circuit then remanded the case to the trial court to review the effect of Assembly Bill 2867.

Selected collection highlights

File:Duccio di Buoninsegna - Christ and the Samaritan Woman - Google Art Project.jpg|Christ and the Samaritan, Maestà – Duccio

File:Memling, Hans — Flowers in a Jug (reverse).jpg|Flowers in a Jug – Hans Memling

File:Jan van Eyck, Around 1390-1441 - The Annuciation Diptych - Google Art Project.jpg|Annunciation – Jan van Eyck

File:Petrus Christus - The Virgin of the dry Tree - 1465.jpg|Madonna of the Dry Tree – Petrus Christus

File:Albrecht Dürer - Jesus among the Doctors - Google Art Project.jpg|Christ among the Doctors – Albrecht Dürer

File:Vittore Carpaccio - Young Knight in a Landscape - Google Art ProjectFXD.jpg|Young Knight in a Landscape – Vittore Carpaccio

File:Hans Baldung Grien - Bildnis einer Dame (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).jpg|Portrait of a lady – Hans Baldung Grien

File:Henry VIII of England, by Hans Holbein.jpg|Portrait of Henry VIII – Hans Holbein

File:Lucas Cranach d. Ä. - Quellnymphe (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).jpg|Spring nymph at the fountain – Lucas Cranach the Elder

File: Jacques Le Roy - Van Dyck - 1631.jpg|Portrait of Jacques Le Roy – Anthony van Dyck

File:Bronzino - Saint Sebastian - Google Art Project.jpg| Saint Sebastian – Bronzino

File:Retrato del Dux Francesco Venier.jpg|Portrait of Dux Francesco Venier – Titian

File:Francisco de Zurbarán - Santa Casilda.jpg|Santa Casilda – Zurbarán

File:El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) - The Annunciation - Google Art Project.jpg|Annunciation – El Greco

File: Santa Catalina de Alejandría.jpg|Saint Catherine – Caravaggio

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 – Rembrandt

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

File:Vase.VanderAst.jpg|Vase with flowers – Balthasar van der Ast

Canaletto - The Piazza San Marco in Venice - Google Art Project.jpg|The Piazza San Marco in Venice – Canaletto

File:Fragonard, The See-Saw.jpg|The See-Saw – Jean-Honoré Fragonard

File:Edgar Degas - Balançant danseurs.jpg| Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green) – Edgar Degas

File:Renoirgarden.jpg|Woman with a Parasol in a Garden – Pierre-Auguste Renoir

File:The_Thaw_at_Vétheuil_-_Monet_-_Thyssen_Museum.jpg| The Thaw at Vétheuil – Claude Monet

File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Shipping on the Clyde (1881).jpg|Shipping on the Clyde – John Atkinson Grimshaw

File:Vincent van Gogh - Les Vessenots à Auvers (1890).jpg|Les Vessenots à Auvers – Vincent van Gogh

File:Cezanne-Thyssen.jpg|Seated Man – Paul Cézanne

File:Paul Gauguin - Mata Mua (In Olden Times) - Google Art Project.jpg|Mata Mua – Paul Gauguin

File:La Rousse in a White Blouse (1889).jpg|La Rousse in a White Blouse – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

File:John Singer Sargent - Portrait of Millicent Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland.jpg|Portrait of Millicent Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland – John Singer Sargent

File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Fränzi vor geschnitztem Stuhl - Google Art Project.jpg|Fränzi before a carved chair – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

File:Franz Marc - Der Traum (1912).jpg|The dream – Franz Marc

File:Egon Schiele - Häuser am Fluss.jpg|Häuser am Fluss – Egon Schiele

File:Quappi con suéter rosa (Max Beckmann, 1932—1934).jpg|Quappi in Pink Jumper – Max Beckmann

File:Girl at a Sewing Machine - 1921 - Hopper.jpg|Girl at a Sewing Machine – Edward Hopper

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Sales

In 2011, due to "a lack of liquid funds", Cervera decided to sell The Lock by the English artist John Constable. The painting, which belonged to her private collection, was sold in London the following year for € million, more than doubling the price paid for it in 1990.

References

External links

Official website
EducaThyssen website of the Research and Further Studies Department
Virtual tour of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum provided by Google Arts & Culture