Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

The Thyssen-Bornemisza occupies the Palacio de Villahermosa on the Paseo del Prado, the middle house of Madrid's Paseo del Arte between the Prado and the Reina Sofia, and was assembled to fill the gaps in those two neighbours. The collection runs from Italian primitives through Renaissance, Baroque, Romanticism and Impressionism to the classic modernists, more than 700 paintings built up over two generations by the German-Hungarian Thyssen-Bornemisza family. Spain bought the holdings in 1992 and installed them in the neoclassical palace after a renovation by Rafael Moneo. Highlights include Duerer's Jesus among the Doctors, Caravaggio's Saint Catherine and van Eyck's Annunciation diptych; the separate Carmen Thyssen wing adds Spanish landscape and French post-Impressionism. Visitors start on the top floor in the medieval rooms and work down to ground-floor pop art; a morning is enough for a structured pass.