The widow of industrial magnate Baron Thyssen is negotiating the sale to the Spanish state of 240 works from her 700 million euro private art collection, she said in an interview published Tuesday.
Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza wants the state to add the paintings to the rest of the collection that belonged to her late husband, Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, and which are displayed at Madrid's Thyssen Museum.
She told the newspaper El Pais that the auctioneers Sotheby's has valued her collection, which includes works by Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, at 700 million euros (950 million US dollars).
The 240 paintings are currently on show in a modern wing of Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, near the more than 700 works of the Thyssen collection which already belong to the state.
She said the Spanish government may agree to rent her private collection with an option to buy it after 25 years.
"We have to reach a deal on the annual (rental) price on the one hand, and on the final sale price on the other," said the baroness, a former Miss Spain and the fifth wife of the Dutch-born Swiss Baron Thyssen, who died in 2002.
She pledged to do "everything possible" to ensure that the works remain in Madrid, but noted that other museums "in Europe and the United States" have shown interest.
The negotiations with the state are complicated by a family feud involving her son, Borja, and her two adopted daughters.
"We must make a deal so that there is no last-minute surprise," she said. "I want my husband's dream to be realised, which I that the entire collection is on display together."
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum has become a major attraction for Spanish art-lovers and foreign tourists in Madrid. It is considered one of Spain's three great museums along with the Prado and the Reina Sofia which are also in Madrid.
The three are all within an easy walk of one another in the city centre's so-called Golden Triangle.
Copyright 2010  AFP Global Edition
