{"id":2645,"date":"2014-11-11T20:43:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T20:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spainexchange.com\/?p=2645"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:56:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:56:19","slug":"palacio-de-liria-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spainexchange.com\/articles\/palacio-de-liria-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Palacio de Liria, Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Palacio de Liria is the Madrid residence of the House of Alba, an 18th-century palace on Calle de la Princesa that holds one of the best-known private art collections in Spain. It is no longer a house seen by appointment once a week: it now opens to ticket holders every day. This post covers its history, what a visit includes, and the opening hours and prices published for 2026.<\/p>\n

History of the palace<\/h2>\n

The palace was built between 1767 and 1785 by order of the 3rd Duke of Berwick and Liria, Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Col\u00f3n. The name comes from the Valencian town of Liria, a title granted to his grandfather, the Marshal of Berwick, after the victory at Almansa in 1707. Work began under the French architect Louis Guilbert. He was replaced in the early 1770s by Ventura Rodr\u00edguez (1717-1785), who corrected technical errors and practically completed the building. The result is a rectangular neoclassical palace, set back from the street behind a garden.<\/p>\n

In November 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, the palace was bombed and looted. Only the four fa\u00e7ades were left standing. Most of the paintings had been moved to safety, but the palace’s own history records the loss of more than seventy paintings, about ninety percent of the archive and more than fifty percent of the library’s books.<\/p>\n

The 17th Duke of Alba decided to rebuild. The English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens drew the plans, to which the palace owes its main hall, staircase and chapel. Lutyens died in 1944, and the Spanish architect Manuel Cabanyes carried out the works from 1948 to 1956. The 18th Duchess of Alba, Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, and her husband Luis Mart\u00ednez de Irujo completed and redecorated the interior. The palace is now the residence of the 19th Duke of Alba, Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, and the seat of the Casa de Alba Foundation, created in 1973.<\/p>\n

What a visit includes<\/h2>\n

The rooms hold paintings, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, engravings, documents and porcelain collected by the Dukes of Berwick and Alba over more than five hundred years. The painters named by the palace include Goya, Vel\u00e1zquez, Murillo, Zurbar\u00e1n, El Greco, Ribera, Rubens, Titian and Palma the Elder. The best-known work is Goya’s portrait of an earlier Duchess of Alba in white.<\/p>\n

The library houses more than 18,000 works, according to Madrid’s tourism website. They include a 1605 edition of Don Quixote and the largest collection of manuscripts handwritten by Christopher Columbus, which reached the family through the 3rd Duke’s mother, an heir of Columbus.<\/p>\n

The gardens are part of the visit. The front garden is in the English romantic style, with old magnolia, cedar, chestnut and yew trees. The rear garden was redesigned in 1916 by the French landscape designer Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier. Since February 2024 the former stables have held a space for temporary exhibitions. From 1 October 2026 to 31 January 2027 it shows “Cayetana: Grande de Espa\u00f1a”, an exhibition of more than 200 pieces on the life of the 18th Duchess.<\/p>\n

Opening hours and prices in 2026<\/h2>\n