Masaveu collection

The Masaveu family made its fortune in Asturias, first in trade and banking and then in cement. Its company, Tudela Veguín, founded in 1898, was one of the first cement works in Spain. Collecting ran through several generations, and Pedro Masaveu Masaveu, who died in 1968, is usually credited with turning it into a serious collection of old masters.

Today the collection is managed by the foundation named after María Cristina Masaveu Peterson, and since 2019 it has had a public home in Madrid, a restored mansion on Calle de Alcalá Galiano near the Plaza de Colón. The house works through changing exhibitions, so what you see depends on the season. Among the pictures the family owns are a Saint Catherine of Alexandria from the late 1630s by Francisco de Zurbarán, the Seville painter of saints, and a small bullfighting scene by Francisco Goya from 1793, painted as he recovered from the illness that left him deaf. Both often travel to exhibitions elsewhere.

A separate part, assembled by Pedro Masaveu Peterson, was given to the Principality of Asturias after his death in 1993 and hangs in the fine arts museum in Oviedo.