Catalonia Museum of Art

▪ museum, Barcelona, Spain

Spanish  Museo De Arte De Cataluña , Catalan  Museu D'art De Catalunya 

      museum in the Palacio Nacional in Barcelona, housing one of the most important collections of medieval paintings in the world and also a fine and complete collection of Spanish ceramics. The Romanesque Galleries comprise a series of reconstructions of church interiors with mural decorations brought from villages in the Pyrenees, transported to the museum in 1919. The exhibits include particularly fine examples of Romanesque architectural fragments such as capitals, stone carvings, and fragments from the cloister of San Pere de les Puelles, Barcelona, the latter dating from the 12th century.

      Other important exhibits include paintings from the Sala Capitular of the Monastery of Sigena and tombs from Santa Maria de Matallana, Valladolid. Thirteenth-century murals taken from the Aguilar Palace, Barcelona, depict the assault on Palma, Majorca (1229), by James I of Aragon and the battle of Porto-Pi. There are also important paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán, El Greco, and Diego Velázquez. The Ceramic Museum displays Spanish decorative pottery from the 13th century to the present.

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