Yes, the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofía are among the most important museums in the world top-rated museums in the world but the list of museums in Madrid is much wider and in front of tremendous art galleries there are also exquisite and less known samples that also deserve our attention.
From private collections to avant-garde bets with an eye on the next generations. The museums of Madrid have been able to adapt to the times and many of them attract the public with small but very careful exhibitions.
1. Cerralbo Museum
The Cerralbo Museum is a house-palace in Argüelles that could be compared to The Wallace Collection in London or the Frick Collection in New York, since they have a similar origin and a similar proposal. This private collection is named after the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo, who arranged for the house as it is today to be displayed.
This place speaks of the lifestyle of the Spanish upper class in the late 19th century. In its eclectic mix we find classicist parts, neo-baroque and rococo elements. Inside it houses more than 50,000 pieces including paintings, sculptures, ceramics, tapestries, furniture, coins and armor, among temporary exhibitions of contemporary art that have long alternated between the rooms of the house.
💸 General admission tickets: 3€
Calle de Ventura Rodríguez, 17 (Argüelles)
2. Madrid History Museum
With one of the most representative baroque facades of the city, what used to be the old Hospice of San Fernando is since 2007 the Museum of History of Madrid. This 18th century building is the work of the Madrid architect Pedro Ribera, a disciple of Churriguera, also the architect of the Conde Duque barracks and the Puerta de Toledo.
The space traces the arts, industries, daily life and Costumbres of its inhabitants since 1561 was elected capital of Spain to the present day. Highlights of the collection include the Model of Madrid by León Gil de Palacio, made in 1830, the Allegory of the City of Madrid by Francisco de Goya, the Virgin with Saint Fernando by Luca Giordano, the collection of Porcelain of the Buen Retiro, the Suite of the house of Mesonero Romanos or the collection of historical photographs.
💸 Tickets are free of charge
Calle de Fuencarral, 78 (Malasaña)
3. Lázaro Galdiano Museum
The Lázaro Galiano Museum has been open since 1951. It is also a private exhibition in the home of the owner of the collection, José Lázaro Galdiano, although it is not set up as the home it once was, but as an exhibition space. The museum is divided into two main floors: on the first floor is the Treasure Chamber, one of the best European collections of civil silverware and jewelry with pieces ranging from the third century BC to the late nineteenth century. And on the second floor, the noble area of the palace, the original decoration and distribution is preserved in its entirety, with ceilings painted by Eugenio Lucas Villamil, marble, wood or stucco baseboards and marquetry floors. Its nine rooms show, in chronological order, a rich representation of Spanish art, from the 15th to the 19th century.
💸 Tickets from 7 €
122 Serrano St. (Salamanca neighborhood)
4. Geominero Museum
The Geominero Museum has one of the most beautiful interiors in the city. Crowned by a stained glass window of the Maumejean house, this building was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) in 1998, in the category of Monument. Inception of the institution, the IGME, dates back to 1849: it was at that time that Isabel II created a commission of experts to create the first geological map of Spain. But it would be in 1926 when Alfonso XIII inaugurated the hall, whose museography -the way in which the pieces are exhibited- responds to the way museums were conceived in the nineteenth century: as large exhibition warehouses that sought to show the more the better.
💸 Tickets are free of charge
Calle de Ríos Rosas, 23 (Chamberí)
5. Dos de Mayo Art Center
In the town that rose up against Napoleon, Mostoles, is the contemporary art museum of the Community of Madrid, the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, also known as CA2M. Inaugurated in 2008, it has positioned itself as one of the most relevant art centers in the country, thanks to its focus on critical thinking, the revision of the contemporary art discourse, its educational, research and dissemination work. This open-mindedness has allowed it to explore different formats and its Program also includes film, music, literature, design and performing arts.
💸 Tickets are free of charge
Avenida de la Constitución, 23 (Móstoles)
6. Museum of America
The Museum of America is one of the most unknown museums in Madrid, but it houses one of the most valuable historical collections. Since 1965 it exhibits pieces of American prehistory until approximately the 1970s, with special emphasis on pre-Hispanic archeology, ethnography and viceregal art, which continue to increase to this day.
The oldest collections belonged to the Royal Cabinet of Charles III, which became in 1815 the Royal Museum of Natural Sciences, and from there, in 1868, these collections passed to the then newly founded National Archaeological Museum. This collection was expanded through purchases and donations until 1941, when the Museum of America was created in its former location.
💸 General admission tickets: 3 €
Avenida de los Reyes Católicos, 6 (Ciudad Universitaria)
7. Museum – Lope de Vega House
The House Museum of the writer and poet of the Spanish Golden Age, Lope de Vega, besides being the place where he wrote and lived much of his work and life, is also a way to get into the Madrid of the time. Although it has been a monument and museum since 1935, the Royal Spanish Academy had been interested in acquiring the site since 1751 when the chronicler Mesonero Romanos identified it as the writer’s house and it was in 1931 when its last owner named the Academy patron of the Foundation that she herself had created and in which the need to create the Lope de Vega Museum was pointed out.
💸 Tickets are free of charge
Calle de Cervantes, 11 (Las Letras)
8. Museum of Contemporary Art of Madrid
The Museum of Contemporary Art, located in the historic Conde Duque barracks, displays in two rooms part of the objects that make up the collection of modern art belonging to the City of Madrid. Among them is one of its most important collections: the office of Ramón Gómez de la Serna. This reconstruction of the office of the writer, a central figure in the artistic avant-garde of Madrid in the first third of the 20th century, is one of the center’s greatest attractions. The space contains artistic and everyday images, as well as the objects that Gómez de la Serna collected in his microcosm.
The museum’s collection consists of paintings and graphic works, although sculpture, photography and drawing are also represented, ranging from the early avant-garde to the present day.
💸 Tickets are free of charge
Conde Duque Street, 9 (Conde Duque)
9. Pantheon of Illustrious Men
It is easy to come across this building while strolling through Pacifico without knowing very well that it is the Pantheon of Illustrious Men, where it is located in the cloister of the Basilica of Atocha. This idea, characteristic of European regimes after the French Revolution , arrived in Spain thanks to the Queen Regent María Cristina de Habsburgo and was built between 1892 and 1899. It serves as a mausoleum for some of the most influential politicians and military men of Spain such as Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Sagasta, Cánovas del Castillo, Dato, Ríos Rosas, Canalejas or Gutiérrez de la Concha and its funerary sculptures are very representative of their time.
💸 Tickets are free of charge
Julián Gayarre Street, 3 (Pacific)
10. Museum of Romanticism
The Museum of Romanticism is also the idea of a nobleman, Benigno de la Vega-Inclán y Flaquer, who after presenting an important collection of paintings, furniture and objects of his property to an exhibition of the Society of Friends of Art, decided to create the Romantic Museum and later, in 1921, to donate it to the State. In 1924 the museum was finally inaugurated in the mansion where it is currently located.
To the initial collection are added donations and deposits of personalities of the time, such as the two paintings of Alenza donated by the Marquis of Cerralbo or objects belonging to literary greats such as Mariano José de Larra, José de Zorrilla, or Juan Ramón Jiménez.
After the 2009 remodeling, it was renamed the Museum of Romanticism because it was more accurate to what is exhibited there.
💸 General admission tickets: 3 €
Calle de San Mateo, 13 (Malasaña)
11. The Royal Collections Gallery
The Galería de las Colecciones Reales is the latest great art museum to open in Madrid. In total the gallery is composed of 650 works, among which there are relevant artists such as Raphael, Titian, Velázquez or Rubens. A cultural treasure that the Spanish monarchies have accumulated from the Visigoths to the 20th century, including a first edition of Don Quixote and remains of the Arab wall.
💸 General admission tickets: 14€
Calle de Bailén, s/n (downtown)
These museums in Madrid speak of the dedication for generations to preserve collections that do not always have a place in museums, either because they are very specific (such as the silverware of the Lázaro Galdiano) or because they are very regional, such as the Museum of History of Madrid, but that speak very well of their time and are hidden treasures for those who discover them for the first time.