The story
The Fine Arts Museum of Asturias fills a cluster of old buildings in the heart of Oviedo, chief among them the Velarde Palace, a honey-coloured mansion of 1765, joined in 2015 by a sharp modern extension. What began as a regional gallery in 1980 now holds one of the strongest collections in Spain.
Its centrepiece is a full apostolado by El Greco, a set of the twelve apostles with Christ, each figure caught in the painter's flickering, elongated style. From there the Spanish story unfolds through Ribera, Zurbarán and Goya to the 20th century, with Sorolla's Valencian light and works by Picasso, Miró and Dalí. Fifteen thousand pieces run from the 14th century to the present, most of them Spanish, gathered in a city more often visited for its cider and its Romanesque churches.
