Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

This museum is the third leg of Madrid’s “golden triangle of art.” Its paintings constituted the private collection of the Thyssen-Bornemiszas, heirs to a shipping and banking fortune. When the holdings outgrew the family villa near Switzerland where they had been housed, museums and municipalities around Europe bid to take them off the current baron’s hands. The Spanish government eventually purchased the whole collection for $350 million and renovated a palace near the Prado to house it. The museum opened to the public in 1993. When the baron died, his wife, Carmen (a former Miss Spain), continued collecting; in 2004, the museum dedicated a new wing to her acquisitions.

Today the Thyssen boasts almost 1,000 pieces, mostly paintings, ranging from 13th-century Italian primitives to 20th-century Surrealists. Arranged in chronological order, they include work by Dürer, Titian, Rubens and Caravaggio, as well as Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh. Also represented are such major American artists as Homer, Pollock and Lichtenstein. Although the collection is smaller than those of the Prado and the Reina Sofía, many visitors cite this museum as one of their favorites, for its logical layout and huge variety.