Madrid’s new Royal Collections Gallery (Galería de las Colecciones Reales), due to open on June 29, will bring together the most remarkable treasures of the Spanish Crown under one roof.
It marks the culmination of 25 years of work to create a museum dedicated to a collection which, until now, was dispersed among the royal sites of the country or kept in deposit. Plans actually date back to the 1930s, but the Spanish Civil War thwarted construction. In 1998, the Spanish government revived the initiative, causing a major upheaval in the country’s royal collections and sites.
With a price tag of just under 173 million euros, Spain’s most ambitious museum project in decades is overseen by national heritage body Patrimonio Nacional, which looks after more than 1,000 buildings and two dozen royal sites, including palaces, monasteries, country houses and gardens. Designed as an international showcase for royal sites, the new museum features 650 pieces from their extensive collections (approximately 160,000 objects in total), ranging from master paintings by Goya, Velázquez and Caravaggio to tapestries, decorative arts and armory.
Museum director Leticia Ruiz says the items on display in Madrid have been carefully selected to “leave no gaps” in the exhibits at their former sites. At the royal palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, for example, an 18th-century palace in a small town near Segovia, Ruiz says Patrimonio Nacional has “taken some work but also added even more” to “strengthen” his museum.
Some fear, however, that the Royal Collections Gallery could be a blow to cultural tourism in the regions, further enriching a capital that already has famous museums.
Several pieces of the new museum have been transferred from the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, one hour from Madrid. The monastery is the second most visited royal site in Spain, attracting 375,000 visitors in 2022, just over a third of the annual visitors to the royal palace in Madrid.
“It’s great that they want to boost tourism in Madrid, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of fewer visitors to other areas that need it even more,” says city councilor Carlos Tarrío. of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.
The council asked the Patrimonio Nacional last year to stop the transfer of objects from the monastery to the Royal Collections Gallery, but the attempt failed. The council has also called for the reopening of two monastery museums, which have been closed since 2015, but Tarrío says he received no clear answer. Patrimonio Nacional told The Art Newspaper that renovations to the two museums are expected to begin in early 2025.
While some of the objects in the Royal Collections Gallery will eventually return to their original sites, Tarrío says residents of San Lorenzo are frustrated by the “complete lack of information” from heritage officials. “We’re not against the project, but it’s not the way to go,” he says.
Ruiz says the Madrid exhibits are an innovative addition to the Spanish and European museum landscape, offering visitors the opportunity to discover other royal sites. It highlights the value of reinterpreting objects, explaining the historical and cultural significance of each Spanish dynasty using state-of-the-art audiovisuals.
“People think this museum might be looting [regional sites], when it’s not,” she says. “It’s about leveraging the whole institution and making us all better. From a tourism point of view, [the Royal Collections Gallery] it’s like having a showcase for every royal site in the most central location possible.
The opening of the Royal Gallery of Collections coincides with the start of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union and its special cultural program in Spain and abroad in the second half of 2023.
