Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Encyclopedia
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, or in Spanish Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, is an art museum near the Prado Museum in Madrid
, Spain. It is known as a part of the "Golden Triangle of Art
", which also includes the Prado
and the Reina Sofia
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 includes Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the second half of the 20th century. With over 1,600 paintings the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection was once the second largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection
. A competition was held to house the museum in 1986 after Baron Thyssen, having tried to enlarge his Museum in Villa Favorita, searched for a location in Europe
.
(1875–1947). In a reversal of the movement of European paintings to the United States during this period, one of the elder Baron's sources was the collections of American millionaires coping with the Great Depression and inheritance taxes, from which he acquired such exquisite old master paintings 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 to produce what is one of the world's finest private art collections.
In 1985, the Baron married Carmen Cervera
(a former Miss Spain
1961) and introduced her to art collecting. Carmen's influence was decisive in persuading the Baron to decide on the future of his collection and cede the collection to Spain. The museum was opened in 1992 after an agreement was reached between the Baron and the Spanish government. A year later, the collection was bought outright.
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.
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
, and his contemporaries, and works of the early Flemish
and Dutch
painters like Jan Van Eyck
, Albrecht Dürer
, and Hans Holbein
. Other highlights include works by the most famous Renaissance
and Baroque
painters, including Titian
, Sebastiano del Piombo
, Caravaggio
, Rubens, Van Dyck, Murillo
, Rembrandt and Frans Hals
and wonderful portraits by Domenico Ghirlandaio
and Vittore Carpaccio
. Also important for the Museum's collection are Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by artists like Claude Monet
, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas
and Vincent Van Gogh
, as well as twentieth century masterpieces
, like a Cubist work by Picasso or late works by Piet Mondrian
and Edward Hopper
.
A collection of works from the museum is housed in Barcelona in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
.
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Spain. It is known as a part of the "Golden Triangle of Art
Golden Triangle of Art
The Golden Triangle of Art is made up of three important art museums that are close to each other in the centre of Madrid, Spain. They form a general triangle shape upon a map.The three art museums are:...
", which also includes the Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
and the Reina Sofia
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art . The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named for Queen Sofia of Spain...
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
English art
English art is the body of visual arts made in England. Following historical surveys such as Creative Art In England by William Johnstone , Nikolaus Pevsner attempted a definition in his 1956 book The Englishness of English Art, as did Sir Roy Strong in his 2000 book The Spirit of Britain: A...
, Dutch
Dutch School (painting)
The Dutch School were painters in the Netherlands from the early Renaissance to the Baroque. It includes Early Netherlandish and Dutch Renaissance artists active in the northern Low Countries and, later, Dutch Golden Age painting in the United Provinces.Many painters, sculptors and architects of...
and German schools, while in the case of the Reina Sofia it includes Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the second half of the 20th century. With over 1,600 paintings the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection was once the second largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
. A competition was held to house the museum in 1986 after Baron Thyssen, having tried to enlarge his Museum in Villa Favorita, searched for a location in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
History
The collection started in the 1920s as a private collection by Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de KászonHeinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon
Heinrich Thyssen , since June 22, 1907 Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, was a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector.-Biography:...
(1875–1947). In a reversal of the movement of European paintings to the United States during this period, one of the elder Baron's sources was the collections of American millionaires coping with the Great Depression and inheritance taxes, from which he acquired such exquisite old master paintings as Ghirlandaio
Domenico Ghirlandaio
Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.-Early years:Ghirlandaio's full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi...
's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni (once in the Morgan Library
Morgan Library
The Morgan Library & Museum is a museum and research library in New York City, USA. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included, besides the manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, his collection of prints and drawings...
) and Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...
's Knight
Portrait of a Knight (Carpaccio)
Portrait of a Knight is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio. It is housed in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of Madrid; it was put up for sale by heirs of the American collector Otto Kahn after his death and sold to Heinrich Thyssen in 1935.Dated 1510, this is the...
(from the collection of Otto Kahn). The collection was later expanded by Heinrich's son Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza
Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza
Hans Henrik Ágost Gábor Tasso Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva , a noted industrialist and art collector, was a Dutch-born Swiss citizen with a Hungarian title, a legal resident of Monaco for tax purposes, with a declared second residency in the United Kingdom, but in actuality...
(1921–2002), who assembled most of the works from his relatives' collections and proceeded to acquire large numbers of new works to produce what is one of the world's finest private art collections.
In 1985, the Baron married Carmen Cervera
Carmen Cervera
María del Carmen Rosario Soledad Cervera y Fernández de la Guerra, Dowager Baroness Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva , daughter of Enrique Cervera y Manent and wife...
(a former Miss Spain
Miss Spain
Miss España is the main annual beauty pageant of Spain that selects the official representative to the Miss Universe pageant. Runners-up go to Miss World, Miss International and Miss Earth.-History:...
1961) and introduced her to art collecting. Carmen's influence was decisive in persuading the Baron to decide on the future of his collection and cede the collection to Spain. The museum was opened in 1992 after an agreement was reached between the Baron and the Spanish government. A year later, the collection was bought outright.
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
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón Jiménez is a Spanish politician and mayor of Madrid. A stalwart of the conservative People's Party , he has previously been a leading figure in various local and national legislative bodies.-Personal life:...
to redevelop the Paseo del Prado
Paseo del Prado
The Paseo del Prado is one of the main boulevards in Madrid, Spain. It runs north-south between the Plaza de Cibeles and the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V , with the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo lying approximately in the middle...
as she thought the works and traffic would damage the collection and the museum's appearance.
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.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
Duccio
Duccio di Buoninsegna was one of the most influential Italian artists of his time. Born in Siena, Tuscany, he worked mostly with pigment and egg tempera and like most of his contemporaries painted religious subjects...
, and his contemporaries, and works of the early Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
and Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
painters like Jan Van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
, and Hans Holbein
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
. Other highlights include works by the most famous Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
painters, including Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
, Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the painting school...
, Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
, Rubens, Van Dyck, Murillo
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
, Rembrandt and Frans Hals
Frans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
and wonderful portraits by Domenico Ghirlandaio
Domenico Ghirlandaio
Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.-Early years:Ghirlandaio's full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi...
and Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...
. Also important for the Museum's collection are Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by artists like Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
and Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, as well as twentieth century masterpieces
Masterpieces
Masterpieces is a compilation album by Bob Dylan. The 3-LP set was released in Japan and Australia in anticipation of his 1978 tour. Primarily a greatest hits collection spanning Dylan's career up that point, the album features three previously unreleased tracks, including "Rita May", "George...
, like a Cubist work by Picasso or late works by Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
and Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
.
A collection of works from the museum is housed in Barcelona in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya , abbreviated as MNAC, is a museum of Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Catalonia. It is housed in the Palau Nacional, built for the 1929 World's Fair...
.
See also
- ThyssenThyssenSee also variant spellings including Thiessen.Thyssen may refer to:*The Thyssen family, which has many notable members including:**Friedrich Thyssen**August Thyssen**Fritz Thyssen**Bodo Thyssen**Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon...
- Thyssen familyThyssen familyThe Thyssen family has notable members, all of whom descend from Friedrich Thyssen, which established steel works, elevators and escalators, industrial conglomerates, banks, and art collections - Thyssen AG, ThyssenKrupp and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. Originating from Germany, family members have...
- Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de KászonHeinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de KászonHeinrich Thyssen , since June 22, 1907 Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, was a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector.-Biography:...
- Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-BornemiszaBaron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-BornemiszaHans Henrik Ágost Gábor Tasso Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva , a noted industrialist and art collector, was a Dutch-born Swiss citizen with a Hungarian title, a legal resident of Monaco for tax purposes, with a declared second residency in the United Kingdom, but in actuality...
External links
- EducaThyssen website of the Research and Further Studies Department
- Virtual visit in the Google Art ProjectGoogle Art ProjectGoogle Art Project is an online compilation of high-resolution images of artworks from galleries worldwide, as well as a virtual tour of the galleries in which they are housed...