Museum of Romanticism (Madrid)


The Museum of Romanticism is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, devoted to Romanticism. It was inaugurated in 1924 as Museo Romántico. It is one of the National Museums of Spain and it is attached to the Ministry of Culture.

History

The museum is housed at Calle de San Mateo 13. It was linked since its inception to the patronage of the Marquis of Vega-Inclán. The museum opened on 1 June 1924. The building was purchased by the Spanish State three years after the inauguration of the museum, in 1927. The overseeing institution and the entire collection of the Marquis was bequeathed to the Spanish State after the death of the former in 1942.
The building, dating from the late 18th-century, consists of two stories plus an attic floor, which is not open to the public.
Both the collection and the building were protected as historical-artistic monument in 1962.
The museum's exhibits are presented in the context of a historic house with a dining room, billiard room etc. They include items related to the romantic writer Mariano José de Larra.
In November 2009, the Council of Ministers determined the renaming of the museum to Museo Nacional del Romanticismo.

Collection

Some of the landmark items exhibited at the museum include painting works by Francisco de Goya, Benjamin de Rolland, Leonardo Alenza, Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer, Antonio Carnicero, José Aparicio, Joaquín Espalter, Vicente López Portaña, Antonio María Esquivel, Eugenio Lucas Velázquez, Charles Porion, Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, José de Madrazo, Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, Joaquín Sorolla, Manuel Cabral Bejarano, José Gutiérrez de la Vega and Francisco de Zurbarán.