The model for Spain’s national museums can be found in the royal and aristocratic collections, as well as Church holdings that were assembled in the heyday of the Hispanic monarchy. The Madrid court became one of the most important European art centres in the 16th and 17th centuries, attracting both renowned foreign artists and coveted masterpieces.

In the 18th century, with the ascension of the French Bourbon dynasty to the Spanish throne, royal patronage of the arts was continued. Moreover, the Bourbons echoed Enlightenment attitudes, associating their monarchy with science and progress and establishing institutions such as the Real Academia Española (1713), Biblioteca Nacional (1716), Real Academia de Historia (1738) and the Real Academia de Nobles Artes de San Fernando (1752). Most of these restricted access to their collections, but one of the holdings of the Real Casa de la Geografía (1752), the Real Gabinete de Historia Natural, became the first collection to be opened to the public (1776). It became the Real Museo de Ciencias Naturales at 1815 and then the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in 1837.

As everywhere else in Europe, the Napoleonic invasions brought profound and far-reaching transformations. Following, once again, a French model (in this case the Musée Napoléon at the Louvre), King Joseph Bonaparte undertook an initiative (which owing to wartime circumstances proved abortive) to open the first Spanish art museum: the Museo Josefino (1809).

The French occupation and the ensuing Peninsular War introduced another dynamic that would characterize the 19th century: Spain went from being an importer of art to an exporter. Pillaging during the war years was rampant. 250 paintings were seized by Denon’s Comisión Imperial de Secuestros (1808); Marshal Soult pillaged 200 paintings in Andalusia (1812); and 83 paintings in Joseph Bonaparte’s baggage train were lost at the Battle of Vitoria (1813) and offered by King Ferdinand VII to the victorious Duke of Wellington.

The pattern continued in subsequent decades. In 1835, the French King Louis-Philippe sent a royal commissioner to collect Spanish paintings, taking advantage of ecclesiastical confiscations of monastic properties. 450 paintings were acquired illegally and ended up on the walls of the Galerie Espagnole in the Louvre (1838-48); when Louis-Philippe was deposed, the paintings were sold by public auction (1853). Archeological artefacts were also removed to Parisian museums immediately after their discovery: the “Treasure of Guarrazar” (Toledo, 1858), with the votive crowns of the Visigoth kings, ended up at the Musée de Cluny, and the “Lady of Elche” (1898), the finest surviving Iberian sculpture, has remained at the Louvre.

The dispersal of Spanish art abroad nurtured an exotic appreciation of Spanish culture which ran counter to the earlier hate-image of the Spanish empire, while within Spain a victimized and nationalistic narrative developed. In 1941, the dictator Francisco Franco received much popular acclaim for bringing back to Spain an Inmaculada by Murillo from the Soult collection, the Visigothic crowns and the “Lady of Elche”; this was managed through the cooperation of Marshall Pétain in Vichy France.

Another consequence of the Napoleonic invasion was the birth of a Spanish nation-state at the Cortes de Cadiz (1812), which would develop a cultural policy and which became the third player, together with the Crown and the Church, in the processes of patrimonialization and musealization. As the 19th century progressed, the Crown’s role as a secular patron of the arts declined drastically; at most there was some Crown involvement in struggles with the national government over ownership of nationalized artworks. For its part, the Church adopted a defensive position in the face of the state confiscation of ecclesiastical heirlooms and the nation-state’s ambition to assume custody of its holdings. Conservative governments usually supported the Church’s right to ownership and disposal, while liberal governments often tried to pass legislation that would prohibit artworks from leaving the country.

The creation of the national museums spanned the century. After the Real Museo de Historia Natural (1815) the Real Museo de Pintura y Escultura (the Prado, 1819) was founded, followed by the Museo del Ejercito Español (1841), the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (1871) and finally the Museo Anatómico (or Antropológico, 1875). All of these were located in Madrid, even the Museo Naval (1843), and most were clustered around the newly constructed bourgeois boulevards: Paseo del Prado, Paseo de Recoletos and Paseo de la Castellana. The importance of these secular cathedrals of the nation was conveyed through their imposing architecture. Their presence contributed to Madrid’s configuration as the national capital. Before this process of monumentalization, Madrid lacked noteworthy sights outside the Palacio Real, the Real Armería and the church of San Francisco el Grande. Wandering the boulevards and visiting the new museums became a performative practice of the nation for provincial visitors to the city as well as a showcase of Spain for foreigners.

The Prado became the national museum par excellence. At its core were the royal collections of the Habsburg and Bourbon kings of Spain, together comprising one of the premier collections of paintings in the world. Royal tastes had followed the successive European fashions and styles acquiring works from both foreign and local painters. In the 19th century this fortuitous combination allowed for the development of a particular narrative around a distinctive Spanish school within the wider framework of Western civilization. The most influent agents around these achievements were the Madrazo dynasty of painters and the institucionistas, a group of reformist scholars.

Not all the museums were so successful. Many projects were never completed, and some of the failures are telling: the Museo Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, created to host art from ecclesiastical confiscations (or  Museo de la Trinidad, 1838-42; its holdings were moved to the Prado in 1872); the short-lived Museo Industrial (1871); the emaciated Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (1894); and the  Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar (1887-98), closed soon after Spain lost its last colonies.

The ecclesiastical confiscations led to a surplus of artwork outside museum collections that was hard for Madrid to absorb, even with the assistance of the Parisian Galerie Espagnole. During the 1840s, Museos Provinciales de Bellas Artes were created in Valencia, Seville, Cádiz, Zaragoza and Valladolid.

At the very end of the long 19th century, the emerging competitive identities of Basques and Catalans opened their own museums that responded to the tastes of the local bourgeoisies: the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes (Barcelona, 1891), the Museo de la Ciudadela (Barcelona, 1915) and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao (1914).

In the meantime, while King Alfonso XIII showed little interest in the arts (continuing the indifference of his immediate predecessors), his patriotism moved him to support the establishment of museums for two of the principal national glories: El Greco (Casa-Museo del Greco, Toledo, 1911) and Cervantes (Casa-Biblioteca de Cervantes, Valladolid, 1915). The same hand that was behind both these projects – the Royal Commissioner Marquis de la Vega-Inclán – also opened what was possibly the first museum in the world dedicated to Romanticism: the Museo Romántico (Madrid, 1924).