THYSSEN MUSEUM, Introduction

And now you can finally enter the Thyssen museum, which together with the Centro Reina Sofia and the Prado form the so-called "golden triangle" of Madrid's great museums, and are all within a short distance of each other.

The extraordinary private collection of Baron Heinrich Thyssen Bornemisza, the German steel magnate, which has been further enriched by his son Hans and daughter-in-law Carmen, is one of the world's most impressive and select private art collections, and is second only to the royal family's collection in England. The collection was started in the 1920s and consists of more than 1,300 works; at first it was dedicated solely to the old masters, but it gradually opened up to the painters of the early 1900s, and then to more recent artists as well.

If you are a bit older, you may have seen the Thyssen collection when it was displayed in the lovely Villa Favorita near Lugano, in Switzerland. But Hans Thyssen's wife Carmen, who was Spanish by birth, convinced him to move his treasures to Madrid. The noble Palace of Villahermosa was masterfully renovated under the watchful eye of Carmen Thyssen, who personally chose the walls' unique salmon-pink color....