Museu Frederic Marès, Barcelona

The Museu Frederic Marès is an art and sculpture museum housed in Barcelona’s Palau Reial Major, the former royal palace. Its thousands of objects come from the collection of sculptor Frederic Marès, and the displays range from pre-Roman material to works from the twentieth century, with particular strength in medieval Christian sculpture. You can also find a separate Collector’s Cabinet devoted to practical and decorative objects such as fans and keys.

Marès’s collecting began as a public museum project in 1944, when an exhibition of his holdings led him to promise the collection to Barcelona. The museum opened officially in 1948 with four rooms, then expanded as his collecting continued. Its sculpture holdings span the ancient Mediterranean, Romanesque and Gothic art, the Renaissance, the Baroque, and the nineteenth century.

Look for the Roman sarcophagus known as the Sarcophagus of Layos, and for the marble relief showing Jesus appearing to his disciples at sea, made by the Master of Cabestany. These works reveal the museum’s unusual breadth: a single palace gathers sculpture, intimate devotional images, architectural fragments, and the everyday treasures of a dedicated collector.