LinksHistory of the Museum and its Founder
The 17th Marquis of Cerralbo Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa (1845-1922), an aristocrat, active member of the Carlist party, collector and innovative archaeologist, bequeathed his mansion and collections, now the Museo Cerralbo, to the Spanish state.The mansion was designed for a dual purpose from the outset: both as a residence and as a museum to house the works of art collected by the Marquis and Marquise of Cerralbo and their children, the Marquis and Marquise of Villa Huerta, on their extensive travels throughout Spain and Europe.
The Marquis of Cerralbo (1845-1922) made a gift of this heritage to the Spanish nation by establishing the Museo Cerralbo, in order that his collections: "...always remain together and be used for study by those devoted to science and art". The State officially accepted this bequest by means of Royal Orders issued on 10 April and 24 September 1924.
The museum is now state owned and managed by the Ministry of Culture, being organisationally responsible to the Directorate General for Fine Arts and Cultural Property. It consists of 25 rooms on the mezzanine and main floor and the garden.
Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa, the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo, was descended from a family of aristocratic lineage which dates back to the 13th century and is related to the Houses of Alba, Osuna and Medinaceli.
The son of Francisco de Aguilera y Becerril, Count of Villalobos, and María Luisa de Gamboa y López de León, the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo was born in Madrid on 8 July 1845, the seventh of thirteen children. As a child he studied at the Escuelas Pías de San Fernando and received an education based on faith and tradition.
At the age of 24 he joined the Carlist party and three years later was elected a member of parliament for Ledesma (Salamanca). As a teenager he already showed great sensitivity towards the fine arts and a natural gift for drawing, poetry and painting.
Becoming the Count of Villalobos after his father’s death, he inherited from his grandfather the titles of Marquis of Cerralbo, Almarza and Campo Fuerte, and Count of Alcudia, Foncalada and the Holy Roman Empire, twice a Grandee of Spain; he passed the remaining titles to his brothers. He also inherited the village of Cerralbo and the Palacio de San Boal in Salamanca from his grandfather José Aguilera y Contreras, in addition to a number of estates in Aranda de Duero and in the districts of Ciudad Rodrigo, Vitigudino and Alba de Tormes. He later added to his properties the stately home in Madrid and the mansions of Santa María de Huerta in Soria and Monroy in Cáceres.
Cerralbo studied Philosophy and Letters and Law at the Universidad Central in Madrid, where he began to show an interest in literature and collecting.
In 1871 he married Inocencia Serrano Cerver, who brought two children to the marriage: Antonio and Amelia del Valle Serrano. The family then began to tour Spain and Europe, taking notes at museums and galleries and acquiring art objects to add to their collection. Their travels took them to France, Portugal, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria-Hungary, Holland, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the former Rumelia, Romania and Turkey. They were united by the selfless aim of building a future museum in the manner of the Italian galleries.
In 1885 he was appointed senator of the kingdom in his own right; his charisma and conciliatory nature led the pretender to the throne, Carlos de Borbón, Duke of Madrid, to appoint him as his representative. In his political activity Cerralbo sought to modernise the Carlist party by making it more dynamic, open and participative, which involved many propaganda trips around Navarre, Burgos, the Basque Country and Catalonia in 1889 and 1890. In reward for his services (he organised over 2,000 committees and some 300 circles), Don Carlos made him a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1895 and awarded him the collar of the Order of the Holy Ghost in 1896.
The crisis triggered by the loss of Spain’s colonies and the situation of the party spurred him to hand in his resignation in 1899. Tired of politics, he devoted himself to other occupations he had taken up during his youth, such as gardening, farming, carriage contests and horse breeding.
With the new century, historical research became his predominant interest and was consolidated through architecture. In 1900 he published a study on Doña María Henríquez de Toledo, wife of the Grand Duke of Alba, and in 1908, an inaugural address for the Royal Academy of History: The Archbishop Don Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada and the Monastery of Santa María de Huerta.
The sensitivity he showed towards remnants of the past was constant. Not only did he rescue from oblivion and demolition many architectural elements, which he incorporated into his collections, but he also made archaeological discoveries in the Castilian plateau that earned him national and international scientific recognition. He sponsored and directed over a hundred archaeological digs around the upper course of the river Jalón, the most noteworthy being that of Torralba del Moral, which at the time was considered the oldest human settlement in Europe. He also excavated Second Iron-Age burial sites such as Aguilar de Anguita and Luzaga and many other enclaves, the results of which were published in El Alto Jalón, archaeological discoveries (1909). He always enlisted the help of various specialists for his studies, such as the archaeologist and draughtsman Juan Cabré, the geologist Pedro de Palacios, the historian Fidel Fita, the engineer Eugenio Muro and the palaeontologist Harlé, and used field and laboratory photography as an innovative tool. Professionals of the stature of Cartailhac, Sandars, Breuil, Harlé and Schulten travelled to Madrid and Soria to view his findings.
His work and enthusiasm were rewarded first with the Martorell International Prize for the unpublished work Pages of the History of the Home Country through my archaeological excavations (1911) and later at the Geneva International Congress on Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology (1912), where his presentation of the studies on Torralba earned him great success. The marquis’s notable prestige in this field led the Minister of Public Instruction, Amalio Gimeno, to invite him to take part in the debate in the Senate on the 1911 excavation bill, the passing of which placed restrictions on the exportation of artistic and archaeological objects, among other things.
A host of appointments attest to his national and international recognition: member of the Spanish Royal Academy, the Royal Academy of History and the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts; correspondent of the Imperial Institute of Berlin and the papal university of Rome; and honorary member of the Archaeological Society of Bordeaux, the London Society of Antiquarians and the Bordeaux Academy of Fine Arts and Letters, among others.
Between 1913 and 1919 he again took the helm of the traditionalist party, now in the service of Jaime de Borbón, Charles VII’s son. The political consequences of the First World War and the disheartenment of the Carlist groups, together with his declining health, led him to abandon politics for good.
On 27 August 1922 he died in his mansion in Calle Ventura Rodríguez, bequeathing all his archaeological finds to the Museo Arqueológico Nacional and Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales and establishing, also through a testamentary provision, the future Museo Cerralbo, consisting of the residence and the art collections he amassed during his lifetime.
