Spain to open New Royal Collections Museum

Spain’s new royal collection museum, which cost over €172 million ($186.8 million), is scheduled to open on June 29. It will display 650 works from five centuries, including masterpieces by Velazquez, Caravaggio, Goya, and a first edition of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote.”

The Patrimonio Nacional president, Ana De la Cueva, told CNN last month that it is a “representative” selection of the 170,000 paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and decorative arts that are typically dispersed among the 19 palaces in Spain and other royal sites managed by Patrimonio Nacional (National Heritage).

The Patrimonio Nacional is in charge of maintaining the state’s large art collections in palaces, monasteries, and convents that were once owned by the Spanish monarchy but now fall under the jurisdiction of the nation.

Some of the works on display at the new museum have never been seen by the general public before.

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An example is the wooden sculpture “Saint Michael the Archangel Defeating the Devil,” which was finished in 1692 by Luisa Roldan, the first woman to be hired as a Spanish court sculptor.