Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Spain
With more than 1,600 paintings, the Thyssen-Bornemisza was previously the world's second-largest private collection after the British Royal Collection. In 1987-88, a competition was held to house the collection's core after the museum's founder, Baron Thyssen, failed to secure permission to expand his museum in Lugano (Villa Favorita) and searched for a more suitable location elsewhere in Europe.
History
The Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon began his private art collection in the 1920s, which included European paintings sourced from American millionaires affected by the Great Depression and inheritance taxes. Some of the notable works he acquired were Ghirlandaio's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni and Carpaccio's Knight. The Baron's son, Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, continued to expand the collection by acquiring works from Gothic art to Lucian Freud, mostly from his relatives' collections.
Initially, the collection was housed in a twenty-room building on the family estate in Lugano, designed after the Neue Pinakothek in Munich. In 1988, the Baron attempted to extend the building with the help of British architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford, but the request was rejected by the Lugano City Council.
In 1985, the Baron married Carmen "Tita" Cervera, who introduced him to art collecting. She played a significant role in persuading the Baron to move 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, featuring 715 works of art. A year later, the Spanish Government purchased 775 works for $350 million, which are now on display in the museum in Madrid. After the museum's opening, Cervera loaned 429 works from her own art collection to the museum for 11 years. The loan was renewed annually for free from 2012.
The Baroness has remained actively engaged with the museum, taking personal responsibility for selecting the salmon pink color for the interior walls. Additionally, in May of 2006, she publicly protested against the redevelopment plans of the Mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, as she believed the proposed construction and increased traffic would harm the museum's collection and appearance.
In 2015, the Baroness postponed her annual loan renewal while considering options to temporarily relocate her collection to a museum in Barcelona, the United States, or Russia in exchange for a fee. Ultimately, she chose to keep her collection in Madrid, but in 2017, she once again delayed signing the agreement. Finally, in 2021, the Ministry of Culture signed an official agreement to loan the collection to the museum for an annual fee of 6.5 million euros ($7.8 million) for a period of 15 years.
Collection
The elder Baron primarily acquired Old Masters, while Hans focused on 19th and 20th-century paintings, resulting in a collection spanning eight centuries of European art. This collection does not aim to provide a comprehensive view but rather showcases a series of highlights.
One significant feature of the collection is its early European paintings, including a substantial collection of trecento and quattrocento Italian paintings by artists such as Duccio, Luca di Tommè, Bernardo Daddi, Paolo Uccello, and Benozzo Gozzoli, as well as works by early Flemish and Dutch painters like Jan van Eyck and Petrus Christus.
Other notable works in the collection include pieces by renowned Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo painters, including Antonello da Messina, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Frans Hals. The museum also displays North American paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries by artists such as Copley, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
The European 19th-century display includes works by Francisco Goya, Delacroix, and Courbet, as well as Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Vincent van Gogh. The museum also boasts a large collection of 20th-century modern art, featuring works by Picasso, Dalí, and Francis Bacon, among others.
One painting in the collection, Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain by Camille Pissarro, has been the subject of a lawsuit. The painting was acquired under duress by a Jewish woman fleeing Nazi Germany, and her descendants have sued the museum for its return. However, a California judge ruled in 2019 that the museum had the right to keep the painting, and the case was heard by the United States Supreme Court in 2022.
Additionally, some works from the collection are housed in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.