Museu Frederic Marès — The Collector's Courtyard

The Museu Frederic Marès in Barcelona is a museum housed in an eleventh-century royal palace that displays over 50,000 objects collected by sculptor Frederic Marès. Originally part of the Palau Reial Major, which served as the seat of the Spanish Inquisition in the sixteenth century, the site opened as a museum in 1946. Its central courtyard features orange trees, arched galleries, and hosts the traditional L'ou com Balla dancing egg custom.

Barcelona · from the walk “Stones & Secrets: Hidden Courtyards of the Barri Gòtic” · audio ~3 min · Generated

Plaça de Sant Iu 5, Barcelona

What historical royal palace houses the Museu Frederic Marès in Barcelona?

You are standing in one of Barcelona's best-kept secrets... a place where royal history, obsessive collecting, and a dancing egg all come together in a single courtyard.......... This building is part of the Palau Reial Major, the Grand Royal Palace. It dates back to the eleventh century, when it served as the residence of the Counts of Barcelona and later the Kings of the Crown of Aragon. In April fourteen ninety-three, just steps from here in the Salo del Tinell, Christopher Columbus was received by King Fernando and Queen Isabel to report on his first voyage to the New World. And after the court moved to Madrid... the palace took on a far darker role. In the sixteenth century, it became the seat of the Spanish Inquisition in Barcelona, a function it held for nearly three centuries.......... Now. Into this loaded history walks one man... Frederic Mares Deulovol. Born in Portbou in eighteen ninety-three, he moved to Barcelona at the age of ten. And when did his legendary collecting begin? At just eighteen, when he discovered the world of antiquarians and auctions in Paris. He spent Every penny he earned from his sculptures on expanding his collection, storing it all secretly in his workshop. Apart from close friends and family, nobody knew about it.......... Over more than eighty years of collecting, Mares amassed over Fifty Thousand objects. One thousand two hundred and ninety-five packs of cigarette papers! One hundred and eight snuff boxes! Seventy-three bouquets made of seashells in glass cases! Rooms full of scissors, keys, pipes, pocket watches, fans, daguerreotypes, tin soldiers, and pharmacy jars. He called the upper floors his "sentimental museum."

...... By nineteen forty-four, Mares had simply run out of room. He donated everything to the city of Barcelona... and the museum opened in nineteen forty-six. But here is the thing... Mares lived to the extraordinary age of ninety-eight, and he Never stopped collecting. The museum had to keep expanding, adding new halls, until it even ran out of space itself. So he opened a Second museum in Montblanc.......... And now... look around this courtyard. This is the Verger, the orchard of the Royal Palace. Orange trees, arched galleries, a gentle fountain at the center. Every year during Corpus Christi, something wonderfully strange happens here... an egg is placed on top of the fountain's water jet, and it dances. The tradition is called L'ou com Balla, and it has been enchanting Barcelona for centuries.......... Frederic Mares is actually the sculptor with the greatest presence in Barcelona's public spaces. His works stand on Plaça Catalunya, on Diagonal, even inside Santa Maria del Mar. But as time passes, it is his collector's obsession, not his chisel, that defines his legacy. Over fifty thousand objects, gathered by one man, housed in a palace of kings and inquisitors. Not bad for a boy from Portbou who fell in love with auctions.

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