Madrid’s Top 10 : Museo Thyssen Bornemisza

Christ and Woman of Samaria at the Well

Outstanding among the collection of Italian Primitives is this work (1310–11) by Sienese master Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1278–1319). The painting’s lifelike quality reveals Duccio’s interest in accuracy and looks forward to the Renaissance.

Self Portrait

This selfportrait (c.1643) by Rembrandt (1606–69) is one of more than 60 such works by the great Dutch artist. It reveals Rembrandt’s view of himself as isolated genius.

Young Knight in a Landscape

Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460– 1525) is an important representative of the Venetian school. This intriguing work (1510) shows a courtly knight amid symbolic and animals and plants.

View of Alkmaar from the Sea

Dutch artist Salomon van Ruysdael’s (1600–70) evocative seascape (c.1650) is one of the finest examples of the genre, for its effortless mastery of colour and perspective.

The Virgin of the Dry Tree

This devotional painting (c.1450) by Dutch artist Petrus Christus (c.1410–72), was inspired by an Old Testament metaphor in which God brings the dry tree (the chosen people) to life. The “A”s hanging from the tree stand for Ave Maria and were meditational.

Expulsion, Moon and Firelight

This haunting work (c.1828) is by the influential American artist, Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School. Cole idealized the untramelled American landscape as a new Garden of Eden.

Still Life with Cat and Rayfish

This witty still life (c.1728) in the Dutch style is by French artist, Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779). Its companion piece, Still Life with Cat and Fish, is in Room 27.

Portrait of a Young Man

The subject of this painting (c.1515) by Raphael (1484–1520), one of the great artists of the High Renaissance, is thought to be Alessandro de Medici, nephew of Pope Clement VII. This haughty youth later became a tyrant and was murdered by his cousin in 1537.

The Annunciation

Distorted figures, swirling lines and bold colours are typical of the Mannerist style which El Greco (1541– 1614) mastered in Venice, where he was influenced by Titian and Tintoretto, both masters of the High Renaissance. This intensely spiritual painting (c.1567–1577) reveals the Cretan artist’s development following his move to Toledo, Spain, in 1577.

Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni

This sublime portrait (1488) by Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–94), was the last Baron Thyssen’s favourite. It was commissioned to celebrate the marriage of Giovanna degli Albizzi to Lorenzo Tornabuoni – a union of two powerful families. Tragically, Giovanna died in child birth shortly afterwards.

Woman with a Parasol in a Garden

This Impressionist painting of a garden bathed in sunlight (c.1873) is by one of the founders of the influential movement, Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841–1920). Renoir was apprenticed for four years as a porcelain painter, and later attributed his technical brilliance in handling surface and texture to his early training.

Swaying Dancer

This exquisite study of a dancer in performance (1877–9) by French artist Edgar Degas (1834–1917) is one of a series of his works devoted to the ballet. Unlike some Impressionist painters, Degas placed great emphasis on the importance of drawing, as the superb draughts manship of this pastel clearly shows.

Les Vessenots

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–90) painted this dazzling landscape (1890) during the last year of his troubled life. He worked feverishly while staying at Les Vessenots, near Auvers in France, producing more than 80 canvases in less than three months.

Fränzi in Front of a Carved Chair

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880– 1938) was an important figure in German Expressionism and a member of the group known as Die Brücke (The Bridge), which began the movement in Dresden. These artists were more interested in expressing feelings through their work, and encouraging emotional responses from their audience, rather than portraying outward reality. Fränzi, seen in this lovely 1910 work, was one of their favourite models.

The Dream

A founder member, with Wassily Kandinsky, of the influential Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group, German artist Franz Marc (1880–1916) took Expressionism in a new, spiritual direction. Colours, as in this 1912 work, are used symbolically, as are the animals in his paintings, which represent truth, beauty and other ideals.

Still Life with Instruments

Liubov Popova (1889–1924) was one of the most innovative artists working in Russia on the eve of the Revolution. This Cubist painting (1915), completed after a period of study in Paris, paves the way for her Painterly Architectonic, an even bolder abstract work exhibited in Room 41.

Hotel Room

In this moving 1931 painting by American artist Edward Hopper (1882–1967) the bare furnishings, discarded suitcase and disconsolate posture of the woman holding the railway timetable masterfully suggest loneliness and dislocation – a subject the artist returned to time and again. Hopper is the most important representative of the American social realist school, created in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression which followed.

New York City, New York

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) was one of the most influential abstract artists of the 20th century. Born in The Netherlands, he moved to New York after the outbreak of World War II. The simple geometrical forms and bold colours of this abstract painting (1940–42) celebrate the energy and dynamism of his adopted home.

Brown and Silver I

Famous for his “action paintings” – randomly throwing or pouring paint onto the canvas in an effort to create spontaneity – Jackson Pollock (1912–56) made a huge impact on postwar art in America. This painting (c.1951) is typical of his revolutionary approach.

Portrait of Baron H.H. Thyssen Bornemisza

This revealing study of the museum’s benefactor (1981–2) is the work of Britain’s most distinguished portrait artist, Lucian Freud (b.1922). In the background is Pierrot Content by Jean Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), which visitors will find in Room 28.