The Madrid collection of Thyssen-Bornemisza belongs to the most interesting art collections of Spain. It was formed by the industrialist and art collector Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and his son Hans Heinrich in the early twentieth century. In 1993 the collection was sold to the state and became available to the public. The Museum is located very close to the Prado in the Palace of Villahermosa, that is built in 1771. Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza has about 800 paintings, arranged in chronological order. Though it is small in volume, the collection includes works illustrating all important trends in art since the thirteenth century to the present day. In the Museum you can admire the works of Albrecht dürer, Jan van Eyck, Vitore Carpaccio, El Greco,
Giovanni Battista Pacetti, Jacopo Tintoretto, Francisco de Goya, Edward hopper, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Klee. Among the masterpieces of the collection, you can select such as "Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni" Domenico Ghirlandaio, "Saint Catalina" Michelangelo da Caravaggio, "St. Jerome in the desert" by Titian, "The toilet of Venus" by Peter Paul Rubens, "Man with clarinet" and "Harlequin in the mirror" by Pablo Picasso. The value is masterfully executed miniature "The virgin by the dry tree" painting by Petrus Christus. In 2005, the Museum became rich for more than 200 paintings from the collection of Carmen Thyssen. These works are on dispaly in the new halls.
