The Minister for Culture and Sport initials the lease contract for the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

The Minister for Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta, in his capacity as President of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, has signed the contract to lease the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection for public exhibition at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, where the ceremony took place, with Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The initialling of the document implies the collection of a total of 330 works of art, valued at 1,703,796,510 euros, including Paul Gauguin's 'Mata Mua' remaining for a period of fifteen years, at a cost of 6.5 million euros per year.

The agreement is based on the explicit desire of the parties to continue exhibiting the collection in the public museum, as well as to continue its national and international dissemination through temporary exhibitions inside and outside its facilities, and to make temporary loans to other museums.

The contract is governed by the provisions of Royal Decree-Law 15/2021 of 13 July regulating the lease of movable asset collections by certain public sector entities that form part of Spanish Historical Heritage. The works of art to which it refers shall enjoy the State guarantee referred to in the Ninth Additional Provision of Law 16/1985 of 25 June on Spanish Historical Heritage.

As steps prior to the signing, following the agreement reached between the parties in January 2021, various actions have been carried out. By agreement of the Board of Qualification, Valuation and Export of Spanish Historical Heritage Assets adopted on 20 July, the exceptional value of the works that make up the collection was recognised and declared. On 3 August, the Council of Ministers authorised the Foundation to lease the collection, in accordance with the provisions of Article 324 of Law 9/2017 of 8 November on Public Sector Contracts. On 10 January, the Deputy General Directorate of the Protectorate of Foundations of the Ministry of Culture and Sport decided to authorise the Foundation to sign the contract.

According to the agreement, the lease will run for fifteen years from the date it is signed. The contract for the transfer of the collection signed on 15 February 2002 and its successive extensions is thus terminated. During this period, the Foundation has a right of first refusal, valid for the duration of the contract, in relation to any offer received that the lessors consider satisfactory. It may assign the first offer right and the pre-emptive acquisition right to the Spanish State.

Among the clauses, it is stipulated that the lessors may, at any time during the term, freely dispose, including the sale to third parties, of three works from the collection, with the exception of Paul Gauguin's 'Mata Mua'. It also establishes the exclusive transfer to the Foundation of all the intellectual and industrial property rights it holds over the image of the collection as a whole, as well as over each of work, including copying, photographic and editorial reproduction rights, for commercial exploitation by any means in any medium (including merchandising and digitalisation).

The contract expressly commits the lessee to keep as many works from the collection on public display as possible, taking into account the capacity of the halls. The Foundation will also endeavour to integrate works from the collection into the temporary exhibition programmes it organises outside its premises. Thus, it has the power to make temporary loans of works belonging to the collection, and must do so under the same conditions, following the same criteria and using the same contractual terms as it does with the permanent collection. To this end, it will catalogue the works and maintain scientific documentation on them, so that it will be able to provide the institutions receiving the temporary loans with the corresponding technical data sheets.

With regard to exhibition, conservation and restoration, the contract specifies that the Foundation will exhibit, conserve and restore the works in accordance with the criteria and following the procedures established by its Board of Trustees for the permanent collection. The words "Carmen Thyssen Collection" will appear on the information cards of all the works while they are on display, whether in the Museum or outside it.

Gauguin, Picasso and Van Gogh, among the 330 works of art

In addition to 'Mata Mua' and eight other paintings by Paul Gauguin, among the 330 works in the collection are outstanding paintings such as 'Marina. L'Estaque' by Georges Braque, 'The Garden of Eden' by Brueghel, 'Loneliness' by Corot, 'Portuguese (the great Portuguese)' by Robert Delaunay, 'Watermill at Gennep' by Vincent van Gogh, 'Fishing (fishermen)' by Natalia Goncharova, 'Seated Woman' by Juan Gris, 'Murnau, houses on the Obermarkt' by Kandinsky, 'Conversation under the olive trees' by Henri Matisse, 'The house among the roses' by Monet, 'New York street with moon' by Georgia O'Keeffe, 'The reapers' by Pablo Picasso, 'Wheat field' by Renoir or 'The flood at Port-Marly' by Sisley, among others. In the museum, the works from the Carmen Thyssen Collection that are the subject of the contract will be exhibited in the 'Twentieth Century Rooms'.

About the museum

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza is the public institution that houses almost 900 works of art collected over seven decades by the Thyssen-Bornemisza family in the Palacio de Villahermosa in Madrid. In order to fulfil its artistic and cultural function, the museum is managed by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, a non-profit public foundation whose purpose is the conservation, study, public exhibition and dissemination of the collection.

In 1993, the Spanish State acquired ownership of the Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, to which those belonging to the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza collection on loan have been added since 2004.

Non official translation