The Spanish government has concluded what is, in effect, a 15-year rental agreement with Baroness Carmen Cervera, the widow of Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza: in exchange for an annual payment of €6.5 million, she will allow her collection of 400 artworks — which range from Rembrandt and Caravaggio through van Gogh and Monet to Roy Lichtenstein, and estimated to be worth $1.2 billion in total — to remain alongside the 775 works that Spain purchased from her late husband in 1993. All this art is on view at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, where her collection was first loaned to join his in 1999. – ARTnews
