Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

The Thyssen collection was built by two generations of a German-Hungarian industrial family from the 1920s onward, and it fills the gaps the Prado and Reina Sofia leave: early Italian and Netherlandish panels, German Renaissance portraits by Durer and Holbein, Dutch seventeenth-century work, and then the whole nineteenth and twentieth centuries with Impressionism, Expressionism, Russian Constructivism, Surrealism and American painting including Hopper's Hotel Room. Spain bought it in 1993 for a figure widely regarded as far below market value, and it is housed in the Palacio de Villahermosa opposite the Prado. Carmen Thyssen's separate collection, mainly nineteenth-century, occupies an adjoining wing and is ticketed together.

What you actually see

• The early panels - Italian and Netherlandish work from the thirteenth century.
• The German portraits - Durer, Holbein and their contemporaries.
• The modern floors - Impressionism through to American twentieth-century painting.
• The Carmen Thyssen wing - a separate collection in the adjoining rooms.

When to go

Year-round; the museum closes on Mondays for the permanent collection except for a free afternoon slot, which is busy. Temporary exhibitions require a separate or combined ticket.

Honest expectations

The collection is arranged chronologically from the top floor down, which surprises visitors who start at ground level. Free Monday entry covers only part of the museum and draws queues. Temporary shows are ticketed separately.

Nearby

The Prado is across the boulevard; the Reina Sofia is fifteen minutes south along the Paseo.